


if this was love and i was wrong (then i'll admit the mistakes we made were always mine)

by fivesecrets



Series: for the last time verse [5]
Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: Borussia Dortmund vs. Bayer Leverkusen, Confiding, International Break, M/M, Masturbation, Nightmares, Visiting, Witnessed Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-09
Updated: 2020-01-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:07:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21963310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fivesecrets/pseuds/fivesecrets
Summary: “Are we okay?  I mean, if we’re not, I understand that, because I know what I did was wrong and I hurt you and I wish there was a way you could realise how shit I feel about that, it was never my intention to hurt you---,” he’s rambling, tripping over his repeated words, feeling every inch of skin burn a furious scarlet under Kai’s steel gaze.  It’s clear how close his former best friend is to snapping, and part of him wants to hear it, the part of him that’s been obsessed with submerging himself in pain ever since, the part of him he spends ninety percent of his life scrutinising, but then there’s the rest of him that would probably sob if Kai yelled.  “What I’m trying to say is, for the sake of the team, can we at least try and be friends?  Just for the international break?”Or, in which Julian's convinced Kai might be the most impossible person in the entire world to place.
Relationships: Julian Brandt/Kai Havertz
Series: for the last time verse [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1371250
Comments: 24
Kudos: 46





	if this was love and i was wrong (then i'll admit the mistakes we made were always mine)

**Author's Note:**

> • As always, apologies for how long this part took to publish. School is really starting to heat up, but I promise I will get part six out as soon as I can (but give it a couple of months, please).  
> • I think most of you know, but part six is the final part.  
> • Enjoy, and thank you for your continued support!

_**hamburg, germany** _

Julian’s convinced Marco has long fallen asleep, so the sudden buzz of the Dortmund captain’s voice, muffled by the music blaring through his headphones, almost makes him jump. He’s got no idea where they are, just that they must be getting closer because the knot in his stomach is tightening relentlessly with the knowledge of who’s waiting for him in Hamburg, with every mile they get closer to the city.

“I said, how are you feeling, Jule?” Marco repeats, the look on his face making it impossible to decipher if he’s amused or annoyed.

“I’m doing okay,” he answers. It’s not exactly a lie, he’s excited to see the rest of his friends, and deep down he’s excited to see Kai again too, even when he doesn’t know how his former best friend will react to him. 

Marco makes an approving noise, eyebrows knitted like he’s lost in thought when Julian glances over to him. They can’t say too much here, not when they’ve got a stranger in the front seat, so he knows Marco is choosing his words carefully when he speaks again. “Are you going to try and make up with him this break?”

“I got used to being without him, if that’s what you mean,” Julian tries to joke, but somehow it still manages to come out all wrong. He can’t lie to himself and pretend like his heart didn’t shatter when he read Kai’s text messages, bared the full brunt of their subtexts, played a spectator while Kai embodied the advice he’d got from Marco and Mario minutes prior, the curtain raising on their dramatics before Julian was ready for the show to begin. But he’s doing better now, the violent stabs muted to dull ache, the sleepless nights giving way to just a little bit of unease when he wakes up without the familiar silhouette of the younger one beside him. The cracks in his heart are slowly starting to fill back up, right in time for them to see one another again. “I’ll try and speak to him, but I don’t know how he’s going to react to me.”

“And you really haven’t heard anything from him since that evening?”

“No.”

“Okay,” the older man’s face merges to calculated, thoughts Julian’s not privy to written on his face. “Excuse me,” he says to the driver, “how long until we get there?”

“About twenty minutes,” comes the response, and Julian doesn’t know whether to be relieved or terrified. There’s the possibility Kai might not be there when he arrives, but his gut informs him otherwise, brain teasing him at the thought of seeing Kai in person for the first time in two months. They haven’t gone even half that time without seeing each other since they first met, but even then, they were closer than they are now.

There’s the overwhelming sensation of having lost something that is more important than anything else in the world. And maybe he is, the way he would cause Julian’s stomach to spasm unhelpfully whenever he’d laugh, the smile he’d never fail to put on Julian’s face. How the minutest of actions, the way he’d run his hand through matted, sweaty hair in the club could leave Julian secretly desperate for him, the general power the younger man possessed over him once Julian admitted internally that he’d fallen in love is unlike anything he’d ever suffered before.

“It’s Hamburg, which is individual rooms for the first week, at least,” Marco’s voice reverts back to a whisper. “But you should remember that the two of you did sign up to share a room in Belfast if it came to it.”

Julian shifts loudly, awkwardly, because _shit,_ Marco’s right, when the qualifiers began all those months ago, before the transfer saga really turned dramatic, even before the feelings he’d harboured for Kai had got too strenuous to bear, he’d just seen it as another opportunity for sex. So had the younger one, Julian can still see the mischievous glint in his mind’s eye, torturing him when it compares to the deathly walls building during their fight on his final night in Leverkusen, how he couldn’t quite knock them down with the power of his thrusts in Ibiza.

“If that happens, would you ask to swap?”

“No,” he says, before he realised that he’d even processed the question. “If he wants to, that’s his choice, but I won’t.”

“You know you’re able to come and find me at any point,” Marco says, smiling gently, something almost forlorn in his expression, as if he’s remembering what he described as the ‘long, awful days after Mario left.’ Part of Julian is still baffled at why his captain has taken such care of him, when he’s experienced the same heartbreak first-hand that Julian has placed on someone else. “Please don’t suffer in silence.”

The only difference being, Marco was in love with Mario too.

“It’s just Kai,” Julian protests, the way his voice catches on Kai’s name completely betraying the image of nonchalance he’s aiming for. 

“Exactly,” Marco says, as the car pulls up into the training ground. Either the driver had overestimated the amount of time it would take them to arrive, or Julian had spent more time than he intended daydreaming, but it doesn’t feel like twenty minutes has passed. Moreover, the distance from Kai has decreased from miles, to a matter of metres. “It’s _just Kai._ ”

His captain’s intentions aren’t crystal clear, but Julian’s sure he can grasp them anyway, as they thank the driver and drag their cases towards the doors to the complex, stopping briefly to pose for the official cameras and selfies with the small crowd of fans circulating by the door. Julian catches a glimpse of himself on the screen reflecting what videos the social media team have captured, is pretty satisfied with how relaxed he appears in comparison to the jitters starting to rise beneath his skin. Shuffling through the revolving door towards the coaches, the officials, and the team gathered in a large group behind them, his heart skips violently as his eyes immediately fixate on the familiar brown curls, the familiar shoulders Julian has run his fingers along too many times and the way they tense, the shots of venom that infiltrate soft blue-green, the moment he catches sight of Julian.

Julian’s gaze keeps flicking to Kai, fighting to maintain polite conversation with the various senior staff talking at him, just about returning to himself long enough to shake hands firmly with Lӧw (because as much as Julian doesn’t like him, he _does_ actually want to get some time on the pitch this break) before they’re dismissed to go and greet the rest of the players. The cameras are hovering, circling him like hawks eyeing prey, switching between him and a member of the group and Julian would bet a month’s wages on it being Kai, everyone clamouring to see their ‘reunion.’

Walking towards his former best friend feels like the final half-mile of a marathon, with his body chained to hundred-kilo weights and shoes doused in mud. He dares lifting his gaze from where it’s rooted to the floor for long enough to see the message flash across Kai’s face, the _we’ve got to pretend everything is okay, just for two seconds_ , doesn’t know if it’s a comfort or curse that he’s still painfully literate in the younger man. There isn’t time to question it, because Kai’s arms are around his shoulders, stiff and limp and feel _nothing_ like they used to, resting rather than holding, before Kai moves back and his warmth that Julian couldn’t keep himself from feeling is absent again.

The agony of the unanswered questions resurfaces with more force than Julian prepared for now he’s seen Kai in the flesh again. He knows Kai is with someone else, but that shouldn’t prohibit him from talking to Julian; and if it did, how can his former best friend deem that relationship healthy? He’s lost the younger man in the throng of players (half the squad have just rolled in from Munich, smelling like plane and raising the volume of the meeting room by about three times), Leon jumping on his back and almost bundling him to the floor with his incomprehensible mass of excitement.

The Bayern player carries an aura so similar to that of him and Kai, Julian has to take a second to recollect himself before giving Leon a proper greeting. There’s Serge, Manu, doing the rounds, barely allowing Julian flashes of Kai from where he’s positioned on the other side, chatting with Timo and not throwing Julian so much as a glance.

He’s really moved on. The in-person confirmation stings, and _fuck_ , it hurts.

The torrent of emotions annihilating him that he tries to conceal behind a smile and a over-friendly welcome to the new members of the national team rob him of breath, sense, so the moment they’re all there and dismissed by Manu (with the only instruction being to reconvene in the dining hall in forty five minutes for dinner), he’s one of the first people to head towards the elevators.

He doesn’t know if it’s luck or choice that Kai doesn’t end up in his elevator. It’s so abnormal that one staged hug could elicit these emotions, yet he knows Marco expected it from him. Maybe that’s why he’s paying such devoted attention, to get some masochistic relish from watching Julian tear himself apart over the consequences of his actions and rub it in as additional punishment. Julian knows he’s being idiotic, Marco’s too kind-hearted to wish that upon his worst enemy, but he can’t help but eye his club captain suspiciously from where he’s chatting to Jonas and Toni about some sort of memory from the Euros. 

Just as he’s leaving the elevator, he thinks he catches Jonas mumble something like, “I need to speak to Brandt at some point. Maybe he’ll know how to deal with Havertz.”

Julian wants to turn back, wants the Kӧln player to turn ‘some point’ into that precise second, but the elevator doors slide shut on another opportunity. His missed chance with Kai and how he’s been replaced with someone who’s identity is still yet to be disclosed to him, the precarious continuation after the opening-day goal in Dortmund, even something as trivial as an offhand comment feels like another void, he’s got to subject himself to.

 _What the fuck does he mean, how to deal with Havertz?_ There are so many possible connotations, scenarios Julian’s accustomed to, ones he isn’t that he can’t even conceive, the options starting to analyse themselves as he collapses on his bed. The entire day has just been a series of questions he doesn’t even know where to begin looking for the answers to, and it might be only early evening, pink streaks running across the early-autumn sky outside, but he’s already exhausted and dreading every single moment of this break if it continues in the same vein.

He could go and hunt down Jonas and demand to find out, but he’d have to have been blind to miss the want flickering between him and Toni. While the Kӧln captain may be shy, Toni is the antithesis, would have no boundaries berating Julian for being a cockblock (Julian shudders at the memory of how Toni developed the characteristic from Thomas Müller), and that’s only going to provoke some comment about Kai from someone who isn’t informed on the shit that’s gone down. Before, it might have been a little embarrassing, and concerning when Julian would have to calm Kai down later that night, but now, it’ll end in flipped tables and smashed glass and melodramatics tearing the team apart before training has even commenced.

The prospect roots him to the bed, barely focusing on the Instagram posts he scrolls past as he waits for the call for dinner. Max’s private story is full of old photos of Leon, tagging Serge in threats to lay off his boyfriend that Julian huffs a laugh at, already imagining the shenanigans he’s going to be roped into to aggravate Max (despite the fact he dreads to think what the subsequent events could be). They’re already being discussed by the time he traipses into the dining hall, Leon gesticulating wildly at the seat next to him.

“We should shoot a fake porn video,” Leon says, Julian choking on his mouthful of pasta, not even getting to express his confusion because Serge effortlessly attracts everyone’s attention with noisy yells of confusion. “Chill,” Leon rebukes him, “it was a joke. Plus, it’d only be the opening.”

“If you and your boyfriend want to be kinky, that’s perfectly up to you,” Julian says, trying not to sound discomforted by the residue of his choking fit. “But don’t drag Serge or me into it.”

“It’d be funny!” Leon protests, almost knocking his glass of water over in animation. “You have no sense of humour.”

“Just because Julian and I are intelligent enough to not evoke the wrath of Max Meyer, does not mean we lack a sense of humour,” Serge says, pitching his voice in a mock-posh tone. The two Bayern players fall into bickering, Julian tuning out as he turns the remains of his pasta over with his fork. He can feel Marco’s eyes on him, concerned and surveillant, and from where he’s sitting down the other end of the table, can hear the buzz of Kai’s voice louder than anything. He’s so intoned to Kai’s aura, which was a blessing when they were whatever-they-were, but now, it’s another weight multiplied to his already-breaking shoulders.

Just when he thought things get any worse, the two of them make eye contact just as Julian’s forcing down the last bite of his dinner, the whole fucking thing almost coming back up as they stare for what seems like an age. It might be no longer than ten seconds, yet the rest of the team might as well be in Belfast already, the heating not turned on for thirty years judging by the shivers that Julian can’t hide from the gales of Kai’s frosty gaze. The eyes that don’t reveal anything, if there’s any pain Kai won’t let it show, won’t confide in Julian like he used to, and that’s what aches the most, in the context of Jonas’ words.

Then the younger one looks away with a blink, and the moment’s over. Another moment of being reminded that Julian ruined everything, another moment of pure, unfiltered helplessness.

Another moment that makes Julian want to stand on the table and confess to Kai in front of the entire team.

But he doesn’t, because Lӧw climbs shakily to his feet instead, commandeering the attention of the table (only due to Manu’s death glares) to begin his welcome address. There’s nothing interesting, the normal pre-learnt spiel of the qualifiers’ importance ( _when will that get fucking old?)_ , the schedule for the week’s training sessions, and strict reminders that they are being controlled within an inch of their lives.

Once the team is dismissed, the windows belying the late-ish hour, Julian tries to catch Jonas on the way back, walking so slowly Leon eviscerates him in front of the entire crowd that’s in their vicinity. Some of the team snicker, but mainly there’s the scuffing of trainers against the carpet, some tired, some shy, and then there’s the lingering sense of unease plaguing Julian that he projects onto the others; except for Kai, who’s demeanour renders him unnecessary for Julian’s defence mechanisms. His gaze is on the floor, watching as he steps across the checkers lining the wood, shoulders slumped in the way Julian would only ever witness after a soul-crushing defeat.

If times were different, he’d go over and sling an arm over him, wordlessly comfort him with touches. It was a time when his feelings wouldn’t matter, Kai’s low mood a more pressing emergency, the morals would relinquish, and it would just be them against the world. 

It’s getting to the point where he’s so forlorn he’s half-convinced he should walk up to Kai and begin to kiss him with no explanation. Forget the public confession, he’s shit with words anyway. He wants to sweep Kai off his feet, maybe even literally, take the reassurance of Kai’s lips against his as a cue to begin rectifying the biggest fuck up he’s ever made.

He’s so caught up in his fantasies he has to reverse back to his hotel room, too busy warding off the insults the other lads chuck at him to notice Jonas, standing by the door, coughing gently as Julian arrives.

“Hi,” the younger one gets out once he’s pushed the door open, “I heard you wanted to speak to me?”

“Who told you that?” Jonas shoots back in that soft voice of his, standing awkwardly in the middle of Julian’s room before he’s invited to sit down, nodding absently at Julian’s harried explanation about overhearing the conversation in the lift. There’s a wearied look about the Kӧln captain that sadly doesn’t look out-of-place or even uncharacteristic, the stories of his post-game breakdowns unspoken secrets within the national team, however, there’s a protective glint in his eye that’s unfamiliar, and if it wasn’t for the fact Julian knows who the topic of conversation is, he’d be almost scared.

“What can I help you with?” He says instead.

“I need to talk to you about Kai,” Jonas says ominously, and Julian thanks whatever deity ensured he didn’t have to face this conversation with no prior warning, because his stomach still tightens painfully at the mention of _him._ He doesn’t want to speak, just wants Jonas to get it out and over with, so he can go the fuck to sleep and dream about returning to Dortmund after the hell this fortnight intends to be.

“What about him?”

“How did you deal with him, when he got so panicked? It’s seriously starting to act as a detriment to his football.”

Confusion is the first sensation that washes over him, because _what the fuck is Jonas talking about?_ Kai, notorious as the epitome of collection, rarely susceptible to public emotion beyond the occasional fight on the pitch or the melancholic expressions Julian was deliberating over minutes ago, getting so panicked his football is regressing? He can’t stop himself from blurting out some kind of crude comment about Jonas’ joke not being funny, watching as the horror on the older man’s face sets in, in perfect synchronicity with the dull agony in Julian’s chest that makes breathing a million times harder, because whatever the subject of this is, Jonas isn’t fucking joking.

“Oh _fuck_ ,” Jonas says suddenly, jolting Julian out of his thoughts for the briefest of moments, “ _fuck_ , you don’t know.”

“You’re damn right I don’t know!” Julian tries to keep a lid on his anger, the rage he didn’t even realise was bubbling beneath the surface, swallowing it down with difficulty because Jonas looks about to bolt. “Jonas, please, what’s going on?”

“I-It doesn’t matter---,”

“Please,” Julian’s voice strains near begging. He’d be embarrassed, but he’s so overcome by raw, desperate emotion, he couldn’t even identify humiliation if it was written in neon lights. “What do you mean by panicked?”

Julian has never been able to see someone’s turmoil played out on their faces in as much clarity as Jonas in the painstaking seconds after his words settle in the air, yet every second the older man remains silent, Julian’s fear intensifies until he’s already being crushed by its relentless weight. He’s busy fighting the hydraulic press of terror when Jonas’ voice activates the key to push it back, Julian barely breathing after his psychological ordeal. 

“Do you remember the old tradition where the Leverkusen and Kӧln players would go for drinks after the derby? Obviously, since we’ve been a bit of a yo-yo club recently, it hasn’t happened, but it did after the game a couple of weeks ago.”

“Okay,” Julian says, purely because Jonas is looking for acknowledgement.

“Kai was one of the first to get from the stadium to the bar, and by the time the rest of us arrived, he was already pretty drunk, rambling about some bullshit and seemed completely out of it. I tried to joke with him, and he just gave me this vacant look, even when the guy he was with, the striker, what’s his name---,”

“Kevin?”

“That’s the one, he gave me a joking shot back. Kai vanishes off, one of my teammates went to the bathroom and apparently, he’d locked himself in a cubicle and was muttering all these unfinished thoughts to himself, he was in there for the best part of an hour. So, I went to Mitch Weiser, who told me that he’d been pretty shaky recently, just as Havertz stumbled out of the bathroom. He was all over the place, did another couple of shots, while we spoke to their new employee, a lovely young woman, about what she knew. Then Kai bolted from the bar, and as I was trying to reach him, he fainted.”

“Are you sure he wasn’t just drunk? He’s never been the happiest of drunks, there were times he used to break down on my shoulder crying after a couple too many bottles of wine---,”

“Apparently it’s not the first time he’s reacted so violently. Mitch told me that one of Kai’s friends, Sophia, found him sitting in a pool of broken ceramics from smashed dinner plates and his own blood weeks ago. It’s like a panic attack, he just loses control of himself completely. He was screaming your name right before he passed out, trying to work out where you were.”

“I wasn’t---,” Julian gets out, shock dousing him violently. He never expected things to be this severe, even when Jonas hunted him down on the first night of the break to discuss things.

“I know you weren’t there. I came to you because I initially wondered if you knew how to help in terms of looking after him, so instead I’m going to ask you to get out of him anything you can, because even I’m worried sick, and I’m captain of his rival team.”

“I wish I could,” he says, cutting Jonas off before the older man can protest, “the last message he sent to me told me he’d found someone else and that he didn’t want anything to do with me anymore. I’m pretty sure that means he wouldn’t exactly appreciate me snooping around his personal life to try and figure out what’s wrong with him.”

“I get that,” Jonas sighs, “but no one knows him like you do.”

“Evidently not, given that everyone else seemed to know about these panic attacks and I didn’t,” Julian fires back, already making a mental note to not-so-kindly confront Mitch for keeping the information from him.

“That’s only a late development, everyone knows the two of you are so fucking close---,”

“Were,” Julian says in a monotone, hating how the word tastes. He chews it over relentlessly, watches Jonas coil in awkwardness from his blunder, murmuring apologies, but it’s lost on the younger man. “I wish I could help, but I don’t think I can. He doesn’t trust me anymore.”

“Do you think he could again?” Jonas is so hopeful; it aches for Julian to shake his head so bluntly. “I’m sorry if I worried you.”

“No, thank you for telling me,” Julian sighs, not following the older man as he heads towards the door, “I needed to know.”

“I know you did,” Jonas mumbles back, “people were holding back from telling you.”

Julian doesn’t get to ask the obvious follow-up question, because Jonas shuts the door behind him with a resounding slam. It feels like the door shutting on any chance of rekindling what he had with his former best friend, because he’s too different now for them ever to be like they were. Nature has taken mercy, numbing the pain, probably until the morning when he’s rested enough to confront it, but at least he can stumble to the bathroom, clean his teeth and collapse into bed without replaying the saga with Jonas in his head on repeat.

Maybe he’s displacing the emotions, maybe he’s in denial, he doesn’t fucking know, his only thought being how he enjoys the final moments of peace before he’s subjected to another torturous day. Maybe it’s just a tactic endorsed to enable him to sleep, keep him from stumbling to Kai’s room in the middle of the night and be left spending the rest of his life regretting his idiocy. 

As he predicted, he wakes the next morning with a drowsiness, lead infused into his blood, weighing him down, and the full onset of Jonas’ words beginning to settle. He’s also running late, forgetting to set his alarm _again_ , so he chucks on yesterday’s clothes and heads down to breakfast before he can stop, think about what he might find there, what he might subconsciously be looking for now he’s heard the backstory. 

There’s the usual volume of chatter when he arrives, passing the long table (which is still only three-quarters occupied, thank _fuck_ , Julian couldn’t think of anything worse than being subjected to extra laps), but he does notice the way Jonas briefly trails off from whatever conversation he was having with Toni (the Real Madrid player gazing at him softly even when Jonas’ expression turns nervous in Julian’s presence) to gaze worryingly at him. No one else seems to notice, no one else turns to look at him.

No one except from Kai, who’s sitting on the end of the table normally reserved for the coaching staff, buttering a roll and pretending to look interested in something being said. It’s so unlike him, and he knows his former best friend will have merely lied about tiredness to avoid the comments from the rest of the team, but for the minutest period of time, Julian forgets all etiquette and stares. The younger one has apathy dripping from the way his shoulders are slumped, dark eyebags not even the brightest smile could fully conceal, shadowing his look viciously when the green eyes flicker up to meet Julian’s, something, maybe a threat, motionlessly stabbing the older one with its violence.

The pain lingers, invisible blood pouring from the wound in his chest even after Kai deflects suspicion with a smile so obviously fake it serves the opposite impact. It doesn’t vanish when Julian sits to eat, forces a laugh for the reaction Max had to the video Serge and Leon shot last night (while Julian was having the worst news conceivable broken to him by Jonas), watches Serge roll his eyes dramatically while Leon divulges into a spiel about all the phone sex they had that Julian hopes to fuck is embellished.

“Okay, we get it, you like to dominate your boyfriend over the phone,” Marco cuts in, snipe in his voice unidentifiable as to whether it’s morning short-temper or actual annoyance. It buys Julian precious seconds to readjust, patch the insentient cut Kai inflicted, and paper over any emotion that might be leaking through. He can’t have them know. He can’t have Kai know that he’s watching, because despite what he might have told Jonas, there’s no way he isn’t going to observe his former best friend, knows the little things that belie so much of his character.

“Are you going to actually eat that, or just turn it over in your hands?” Someone asks, Julian too startled to decipher the voice. He fires back some comment about swaying from the nutritionist diets and chews intently. Somewhere down the table, a mocking comment must have been fired, because suddenly a slice of toast is hurtling through the air, hitting Toni in the face with a delicious smack. Julian’s caught in the crossfire, a wayward sausage smacking against his shoulder and forcing him to choke on the tasteless bread he was still swallowing the remains of, eyes already falling to Lӧw and the look on his face that screams desire to retire.

“Retaliate,” Leon demands, “we need to get rid of the cunt.”

Half-heartedly, Julian tears a bit of bread and chucks it into the centre of the table, enough to grasp a couple of teammates’ attentions, before picking the incriminating sausage from the tablecloth, turning to Leon, and aiming it right at his face from point-blank range. There are some laughs, not least from Julian (the sound is somehow real, stark contrast to the damp mood that has shrouded him since the car brought him to Hamburg yesterday), as a greasy mark forms just over Leon’s right eyebrow.

One of the staff raises their voice in warning, but it’s drowned out by girlish squeals, ensuing hilarity at Leon’s vocal complaints, Julian finally remembering what he loves so much about the international break as an egg squelches directly into Serge’s face, right until it’s undermined by a loud scrape of chair legs across the metal floor.

The rest of the team might be joking louder than ever, but all Julian can hear is the patter of Kai’s feet as he crosses the floor, passes the chaos that must get gradually worse the further away from the coaching staff he reaches, door slipping shut behind him without anyone else noticing he’s gone. A couple of the others follow slowly, Manu shaking his head with a terrifying cross between amusement and irritation, until finally Leon decides he’s had enough and begins whining for the fight to cease.

It’s a miracle Julian doesn’t need to take a shower from the extent of the breakfast shenanigans, late awakening malforming into late timekeeping, shoe still hanging off his foot as he stumbles out of his room, tripping on the laces as he heads down to training. He’s grateful for the antics, how they enabled him to settle back in, remind him that there’s more than Kai’s sullen silence and hostile glares, but that might be the biggest problem of all; there’s more than Kai, but whenever Kai does _anything_ , anything else turns irrelevant. His gaze just finds Kai at any point in time, even when the younger one’s simply moving to push those stupidly gorgeous curls of his out of his eyes.

It's sweet torture, because Kai is so beautiful it’s enough to make his heart stutter, stupid flutters cursing his stomach the second he pushes the door to the locker room open. There’s the obvious, conventional attraction to him, the type that Julian was allowed to use as stimulation when they’d fuck just to get their needs out the way, but then there’s the true beauty. It’s quiet, subtle, the sweep of his eyelashes, the way the sun would bring out the hazel tint to his eyes, the stuff Kai’s probably dimly unaware of, while Julian’s heart squeezes painfully three feet away, or now, thirty feet, or ninety metres, or fifty miles.

“You’re staring,” Leon whispers, causing Julian to jump and the Bayern midfielder to mutter something about revenge. There’s no residue from the sausage grease stain, Leon’s perfect immaculacy that he’s become famous for restored, right before Julian’s shoved towards his spot in the room and begins to change into the cleats, stripping off his jacket.

Manu’s strangely silent in the corner, not indulging in his usual spiels to the defenders about not prompting him into conceding at any point during the break, not least during the inevitable training match at the end of the afternoon. Julian thinks he hears someone make a remark about being sex-starved that earns them the terrifying glare, but he’s widely left alone. Jonas looks hesitant, expression commonplace, but even more so when his gaze meets Julian’s. Silent messages fly between them, inquisitive curiosities about Kai’s situation that evokes nothing from the older man, the blush forming on his cheeks prompting Julian to worry that Kai can fucking understand them.

His former best friend isn’t watching them, but Julian can’t shake the feeling of being caught as he steps onto the pitch, shoulders raising automatically to counteract the sleet of rain. Leon’s whining something about the weather being worse than London when they set off for the three-mile warm up, and if things were different, if Julian didn’t still feel so _weird_ , he might’ve made a comment about Leon not seeing anything but the ceiling of Max’s bedroom.

But his throat is dry, and Serge is on Leon’s other side, Serge who’s blissfully unaware of anything that’s happened in Julian’s life outside of what the public knows, doesn’t even know the minor role Leon’s played in it, he lets the Bayern player whisk Leon away in conversation while Julian loses himself in the thud of cleats against mud-infested grass.

He pulls away from his friends as they converse, briefly running in Marco’s company before finding an open expanse of space on the second mile. They’re out of sight of the training complex, somewhere in the neighbouring woodland, the track giving way to stoned path (probably to prevent injury, he thinks drily). His eyes are fixated on the rhythm of his feet, nothing else until he hears a trip, a thud, and a curse he’s heard so many times before.

Kai’s sprawled on the side of the path, looking soaked through despite the relative cover the trees have provided them. Julian didn’t even realise he was gaining on him, but he feels himself stop automatically, unable to place the horrific sensation rising in the back of his throat, leaning down to offer Kai assistance.

“Are you okay?” He gets out, viscerally cringing at the sound of his own voice. It’s jumped three pitches, as if someone’s wrapped a rope around his neck and the knot is beginning to press its way through the skin, and Kai knows him so well it’s incomparably embarrassing to see the confusion etch on the younger one’s face.

“Yeah, um, thanks.” Kai’s hand is soft, familiar, and _fuck_ , so warm and correct resting against Julian’s own. He sounds as strained as Julian, brings the older one the smallest amount of relief, right until Kai’s figure rises above him, slightly trembling, water dripping from the mess his hair has become and it’d be so _fucking_ easy for Julian to just lean up and press his lips to Kai’s, right there in the rain that is so heavy it’s crashing through the forestry, pattering against the leaves and echoing the complete indescribability of whatever’s rushing through Julian at that precise second.

He’s sure he’s forgotten how to breathe, and Kai isn’t moving either.

It feels like so much is laying bare between them, right there in some forest on the outskirts of a city they’ve only been to for matchdays. Maybe Kai’s experiencing some of the same emotions as he did the day Julian’s transfer was announced, an element of déjà vu from Mitch’s recounts of finding him in a Barcelonan wood. 

It isn’t until Leon and Serge come half-crashing through the foliage that the tentative peace forged from no-man’s land is shattered, or that they realise that Kai’s hand is still in Julian’s.

The hold drops like a stone, the cold air racing onto Julian’s skin like the worst torment conceivable.

Kai’s staring at him like he wants to say something, or maybe do something, and Julian would give the world for Serge and Leon to have been delayed by two hundred metres and for his former best friend to garner the courage. The sentiment’s destroyed by whatever insensitive comment Leon comes out with, breaking Julian’s zonal focus for just long enough for the expression on Kai’s face to manipulate into something horrific, terrified, and enabling the youngest one to bolt with everyone else too off-guard to give chase.

Julian’s too shaken by the confrontation to run at the same intensity as before. 

It felt, for the slightest moment of unparalleled bliss, like they’d achieved something that had been simmering since the night in Munich he still relives.

There’s also the pain of knowing Kai is still so beautiful, yet so different from the man Julian had fallen for, and that Julian would give anything to be with any version of him.

Most of the team are behind him when he finally breaks into the clearing of the training pitch, but Kai’s already with the coaches, shifting, antsy, from foot to foot. Serge and Leon have the decency to trail away from the mocking comments, probably more for the risk of fragile Kai overhearing them, because God knows how he’ll react now.

If being with the national team was awkward before, the altercation in the wood has amplified the tension beyond tenfold, the towering gates of the complex might well be closing in on them now, forming gaps that shroud their teammates perfectly to cause their escape. They’re a pressure cooker, Julian can see the walls of anger coat in a new layer of black paint every time he catches gaze with the green eyes which glinted so gut-wrenchingly in far too many nights for Julian to count. The wall that formed so quickly after Kai ejected himself from Julian’s life, slobbered in tar, precarious to navigate for anyone else, and nigh-on impossible for its proprietor.

Zoning out, he’s only disrupted when Kai’s eyeline turns to him, holding his unintentional stare with a challenging glower. Part of him is relieved to see it, a similar expression graced the younger man’s face so many times at training in Leverkusen, a particular training drill that allowed for competition (that usually ended up in Kai collapsing on top of him), but the frown lines on his forehead belie that it’s not the same friendliness.

“Brandt! Havertz! Focus!” Lӧw bellows, and Julian can see half the team start in response to the insinuation that he and Kai had interacted. He might’ve expected Jonas, Leon, even Marco, but not fucking Timo, not the underlying inquisition that replaced the expected mocking.

The dial on the pressure cooker has been increased to maximum, burning Julian from the inside out.

He pretends not to hear the confused whispers rising from the untraceable thud of cleats across the grass. He can’t react, isn’t worth wasting time when the scheduling has placed their first game the following evening, stares at the balls cushioning against his feet in distraction.

For the first time, he doesn’t want to check if Kai’s looking at him. For the months after he admitted its reasoning, and really the years preceding it, he’d been addicted to the connotations of what Kai’s attention meant, first sex, then the tantalising prospect of being subjected to a hurt he earned, the oxymoronic desire he had to let it wash over him. But the hurt’s dried now, splintering his skin slowly, cutting him to death by way of a thousand scars, and replenishing it would be too exhausting.

Marco must detect his mood, wordlessly pairing up with him and half-guiding him through the session. He’s the epitome of diplomacy, effortlessly manipulating the various members of staff who query into Julian’s uncharacteristic silence. 

The teams being sectioned into two teams for the training match when his captain leans across, “you need to start pretending like what happened in the forest didn’t. They’re going to start asking questions pretty soon.”

“How do you---,” his voice is cold.

“Know? Leon told me, right in front of you. I should’ve guessed you weren’t listening,” Marco says, voice too concerned to master the joking tone obviously intended. There’s nothing Julian could say in response, if there was even time, they’re being separated for the match purposes, and Julian’s been drafted into an attacking partnership with Kai.

The younger one mumbles something about tactics once Julian’s in earshot, turning away and striking a meaningless conversation with Jonathan. It’s so painfully obvious, maybe for the first time, that Kai’s still feeling the same---, and well, _fuck_.

Momentarily, Julian feels like the biggest idiot on the planet, and he doesn’t get to consider it any further, because the game has begun, and they’re immediately jumped on the defensive. The lack of dramatic realisation inhibits the importance of whatever he’s just strung together in his impermanently shot mind, and before he can regrasp it, he’s lost the sentiment just like the ball at his feet.

Once he wins it back, it’s easy to slide the ball to exactly where he knows Kai will be arriving late through the centre, weaving the path through the defenders with stunning ease, slotting it in the corner, and Julian despises that the reason he doesn’t celebrate emphatically, ridiculously, was because the assist came from him.

The person Kai doesn’t want to associate with.

He’s maybe three seconds away from breaking down on the pitch. He doesn’t, the restart swoops in to save him with the ear-splitting intensity of the god-awful whistle that Lӧw insists upon (it might be the only thing worse than the bullshit he spouts), but his focus as gone. It’s the biggest relief when the session ends.

Right about then, he realises the inability to focus might be the biggest problem of all. Because how the fuck can he, when Kai’s there, with all the memories etched into the gorgeous curves of his face?

_He remembers the day he broke up with Lotta. The pain was muted by the prospect of Wolfsburg, before the horrendous comments flaring around the school that he’d hear the following day, but he remembers clattering into the kitchen and having the listen to his grandfather drone on about not being distracted by women. How attainment, success, all of that came before the perils of love-distraction._

He wonders what his grandfather would say if he heard the extent of his feelings for Kai. Every second in his presence he’s torn between vomiting his heart violently or falling to his knees, choked off sobs, begs, whatever he needs to say to get Kai to forgive him, _or even just fucking notice what must be inscribed into his face_. He doesn’t know which would be more embarrassing, which Kai would use as method to humiliate him more, hurt him more.

It’s not like he didn’t deserve it, but _fuck_ , it’s unfair. 

Shakingly, he focuses on the one part of his memory that doesn’t instil a horror.

_Lotta. God, he wishes he could speak to her now._

• • • • • • 

At some point the following day, he bears the brunt of his distraction in training by being relegated to the bench. Part of him is disappointed, he knows his brothers have made the hour trip to watch the game, but really, he hasn’t been the pinnacle of concentration at any point since he stepped into the training complex two days ago. Weirdly, since his epiphany in the training ground (that still hasn’t provided him with any grandeur, because _Kai missing him_ isn’t revolutionary when he considers the whole picture) his former best friend has been less of an instigator, diminishing to let Julian’s insecurities return full throttle.

The reversion to his ‘normal’ is almost welcome, at least doesn’t invite the surveillance he knows Kai is also subjected to, doesn’t force him to remember all the similarities between them that last a severed bond. The two of them being on the bench just another mundane addition to the list he presumes will never cease growing if he pays it attention.

Tucking his feet up after the national anthems, trying to keep warm as the evening temperature drops, his attentions turn to the game. Against the black sky, the floodlights, the monochrome tones of the crowd, the Dutch players stick out like sore thumbs, Virgil Van Dijk a colossus from the angle Julian’s watching from, bright enough to hold his gaze long enough for him to jump when Jonas leans over and whispers,

“I’m sorry.”

“What?” He says, loud enough to cause the rest of the substitutes to look over, confused. Lowering his voice, Kai’s annoyed eyes piercing into the back of his head, “what for?”

“I didn’t mean to distract you like this,” Jonas’ tone is careful, half from the shyness that only Toni managed to break through recently, half from the delicacy of his topic. “I should’ve known that hearing about Kai would’ve thrown you so badly. Anyone in their right mind---,” he trails off, mumbling something that Julian thinks sounds incriminating of his ability to hide his feelings, “but I’m sure he’ll be okay. He’s got a great team around him there.”

Julian nods, turning back to the match which is beginning to find pace. There’s the bitter taste of annoyance at Jonas’ insistence to discuss Kai with him only metres away, but also, there’s probably no better place than in the centre of a bustling stadium, with attentions elsewhere, easily disguised as mere tactics or opinion.

The selfish part of him doesn’t _want_ Kai to be okay, wants Kai to hurt so badly he has no alternative but trailing back to Julian with apologies and confessions dripping from his lips, but the part of him that is madly in love (that seems to get deeper every day, even when the bottomless chasm of his affection stops the agony from reaching him) wouldn’t wish an ounce of pain on his former best friend if it would guarantee him winning the Bundesliga, Champions League and World Cup all on the same fucking day.

“I just wish I knew if it’s okay to talk to him,” he mumbles, unaware if the Kӧln captain is even still listening to him. “The last time I tried to rectify everything, we ended up having sex.”

Instantaneously, there’s the guilt of outing Kai to another person without consulting him first, but that’s washed away by surprised at how _unsurprised_ Jonas looks. He doesn’t know what he’s been told, couldn’t bring himself to ask even if he wanted to, so he shakes his head and tries, almost succeeds, to concentrate on the match, just as Serge scores and the crowd erupts.

If he pumps his fists a bit too vigorously in celebration, no one would question it. There’s no quickfire response from the Netherlands, the game slowing down to a pace that starts to evoke fear from Julian, worry that cameras are going to turn, bored, to him on the bench, that fans are going to spot the rift that must be visible between he and Kai. Maybe they’ll put two and two together, maybe they’ll assume there’s a breakup… which would better than the fucking shambles of falling into bed and pretending nothing happened the following morning that consumed them, entangled them in their mesh even when the scenario is so different now.

He hates how easily his consciousness can lie to him, how he lets himself be tricked into believing Kai isn’t the source of his negativity anymore, how destroying the whiplash is when he realises that _yes, he fucking is_ , over and over again, a never ending taunt that practically summarises what Kai is to him.

Never ending fucking pain. Hatred; worry; desire; love. The list of words that he uses to try and figure him out, because listing is the only technique that provides him any semblance of sanity.

If he doesn’t stop soon, it’s going to have lasting detriment to his career, and really, that might be why everyone else is paying so much fucking attention to him. He knows he’s being an idiot, Max’s intoxicated callout outside the nightclub in Ibiza has ran through the forefront of his mind too many times to count, because he’s _right_ , and is actually saying what he knows everyone else is thinking.

The problem is, Julian isn’t listening. Not because he doesn’t want to, but because he _can’t._

How can he, when Kai was there, _is_ there, his scent is stuck in the air and poisoning Julian, slow, laborious death under the honey flecks in Kai’s eyes.

He feels encapsulated by trance as the team head back towards the locker room at half-time, some boisterous, upbeat chatter about their slim lead. He’s in the room, can hear the coaching staff laying into the style that isn’t working, vaguely registers that he’s going to be subbed on and just about conjures a semblance of concentration as the team yell their normal, nonsensical drivel about preparing for the second half.

He’s not sure how, but he ends up next to Kai when they all reconvene on the bench.

“Hey,” he says, hating how obviously choked up he gets. It’s been less than 48 hours since the moment in the forest that is going to define the international break completely, but since, Kai’s gone from avoidance to acting like Julian doesn’t exist at all. It might be why his heart threatens to eject from his chest at the simplest of words from him, glancing up to see the faintest trace of a smile and _shit_ , how has Kai never noticed? There’s no way he’s not painting his thoughts, feelings, whatever the fuck’s going on in his head all over his face, and Kai used to be so literate to his desires.

Or maybe he sees, and he ignores, because it’s easier that way. He’s not in the place to ask, except he doesn’t get the chance to because Kai actually mutters something along the lines of ‘tough game,’ before being called for substitution.

It’s easy to avoid when he’s not there, whenever he sees Kai’s face, he can just switch channels and watch some random second-tier game just because it’s sometimes too painful. But Kai’s twenty metres from him, unavoidable and absolutely fucking gorgeous; all white shirt and messy curls in the autumn rain and making it completely impossible for Julian to rip his gaze away.

By the time he’s subbed on, the game has turned on its head and they’re scrambling for an equaliser. He tries not to focus on how simple he slots into attacking alongside Kai, how slick their passing is despite the rift between them, and it works until Wijnaldum manages to score in the ninety-fourth minute and the defeat is inescapable. Toni’s cursing under his breath when Julian passes, glancing over to a concerned Jonas with a grimace, Manu furious underneath his blank exterior.

“Good game,” he says in his accented English to whichever Dutch players come his way, feeling a little swell of admiration when Van Dijk offers his hand. It’s a bit of a blur after that, the way it’s always been with him when he’s disappointed.

“Jule?” Marco says as they emerge from the bowels of the stadium, entire team deflated from the swamp of defeat. Kai’s ahead, gaze fixed on the floor, and Julian can almost hear the reprimands running through his head, the younger one’s self-torment notorious to him. Part of him feels like an idiot for romanticising the tiniest of interactions with Kai, but he doesn’t fucking possess any self-control anymore. With every day that goes by, he hates himself more, and tries to conceal it in a different way. It’s getting exhausting and it’s barely been consciously going two months.

“Yeah?” He sighs eventually, curious as Marco falls silent as they wait for the bus. There’s hushed chatter between Toni and Jonas, gentle mutterings about how proud Jonas is of his boyfriend’s composure, but the deflation has prompted stony silence that Julian would be an idiot to deny isn’t directed at the increasing certainty the team has of Lӧw’s competence running out.

He collapses against the window, knowing that Marco will wordlessly slip into the seat beside him. There’s the final moments of silence, too weighted to be cherished, before the bus judders into life and Marco starts to speak.

“Jonas told me he told you about Kai.”

“Marco,” he whines, “don’t do this now---,”

“Why not? Everyone else is too caught up in their own business right now and I’ve got to call Mario once we’re back at the hotel.”

“Can it not wait? We have a whole ass plane flight tomorrow.”

“Where we’re going to be sandwiched in by someone else who is definitely going to overhear everything,” Marco whispers back sharply, before something cracks in his annoyance and he sighs. “For fuck’s sake, Jule, I’m worried about you.”

“I’m okay---,” he says, deflecting like he did in the car on the way up to Hamburg only two days ago. Kai’s presence, the constant second guessing he’s been subjecting himself to ever since has made it feel like it’s already been five months. But regardless, it isn’t fooling Marco, who shoots him the most unimpressed look before continuing,

“Except you’re obviously not, so don’t even try pulling that bullshit on me. Anyway, since Jonas told me you knew, I wanted to check up on how you’re feeling about it.”

“If I said it doesn’t affect me, you’re not going to believe that, are you?”

Marco shakes his head wryly.

“I thought as much. Yes, I’m worried about him. There you go.”

“Jonas did tell you he was screaming your name that night after the derby, right?”

“He did,” Julian says weakly, finally allowing the shock to throw its second wave over him. He’d struggled for coherency then, but even now, two nights later, he hasn’t found the composure, let alone the words. “But that was him just being drunk, right?”

“Do you not remember what Mario and I told you right before you left our house the night you got that text from him? When we told you to give yourself time to heal before trying to rekindle anything with him?”

“Yeah,” Julian mumbles, feeling slightly like a scolded child. “I tried, Marco--,”

“I know you did, because there’s no way you could’ve pretended for even this long. But I never thought you’d react this adversely to seeing him again.”

“What do you mean?” Julian says, eyes surveying the coach to make sure no one is secretly listening.

“Julian, you’ve stopped staring at him for the grand total of about three minutes for the past two days!” Marco exclaims in that perfected, heated whisper. “Every time he opens his mouth, you jump out your skin wishing his comments are aimed at you, not to mention the way you could barely breathe for the entire training session. Leon and Serge did tell me about what they saw, you know that?”

“I expected nothing less,” Julian responds, openly sulking. “Did it occur to you that I might not like the constant surveillance?”

“Yes,” Marco rebuts, “yes, it did, because who in their right mind _likes_ it?”

The agreement throws Julian completely off guard, turning towards the window and plugging his headphones in with a clear intent, not caring that he’s sick of the song that comes blaring through them first. He can see Marco begin to protest in the reflection of the glass, busies himself with watching the city roadsides and ignoring the growing feelings of doubt that Marco’s right, that he’s being an idiot for not listening, that he’s already given up on trying to get over Kai--,

He turns back to Marco, probably looking borderline insane as he chucks his headphones away, even more so when the words tumble from his lips without any coherency. It takes him the best part of two minutes to calm down enough to enunciate without revealing his innermost thoughts to the entire team, or revel in the shock of remembering something he’d managed to repress to the back of his mind, but he’s eventually able to mumble, “what does Kai’s partner think of it?”

Marco’s eyebrows knit in confusion, “Kai’s partner?”

“Do you not remember? When I showed you the text about him not wanting anything to do with me, right before it there was one about him finding someone else?”

The Dortmund captain nods slowly, still looking entirely unconvinced, so Julian repeats his question. “What does Kai’s partner think of his panic attacks? Did Jonas tell you that?”

“No--,” Marco’s voice, once laced with annoyance that it is no completely void of, replaced with a quiet, thoughtful tone that implies deduction, taunts him. “No, he didn’t. That’s weird.”

Before Julian can pressure him any more, Marco’s pulled his phone out and begins texting someone with an intensity that only serves to frustrate the younger one, because the moonlight is shining to block the screen from view. Part of him wants to assume it’s Jonas, or even better Kai, maybe Marco’s hacking down methods to get Kai and Julian together, and Julian’s just about to lose himself in delusion when Marco giggles, flashes him a look at some stupid selfie Mario sent him, disappointment not even settled before the bus arrives at the hotel and the team are clambering around them. He loses the older one in the mess, ending up being pressed between Jonathan and Kai, squashed so close his former best friend is left breathing down his neck with such accidental malignance Julian can’t decipher if he’s supposed to question him, punch him, or grab him down to kiss him.

Given it’s taken him two fucking years and counting to work up the courage, he doesn’t see the last one happening in the brief seconds the congestion enables the possibility. Plus, there’s the added issue of morals, chucked like a dead bear on top of the ever-growing pile of detritus that is their failed attempt at friends-with-benefits-with-feelings.

Their flight to Belfast departs early the following morning, so there’s not permittance to commiserate the defeat over a bottle of vodka. There’s only too-hard tugging at the curtains, a shower where the water hits too hard against his skin, so cutting it manages to rattle the fragility of his heart, and silent begging to his brain to abstain of thought.

It doesn’t happen like that. All he can consider is Kai with someone else, Kai broken in tears on the floor being rocked to comfort by someone who _isn’t him_ , suffering the outpouring of the emotions he displaced in favour of lamenting Kai’s overall message.

Maybe it’s the cue he needs to try and force himself over the brick wall surrounding his heart that is Kai.

Streaks of dawn must be appearing on the horizon by the time Julian manages to drift into dreamless sleep, if only he had the curtains open to see it.

* * *

_**belfast, northern ireland** _

“Uno!” Leon exclaims, accompanied by the complimentary shushes from every other player in the game. Serge says something about respecting the others on the flight, with all the infallible maturity in the world for how cutting it is by nature, wincing at Leon’s overdramatic response, “all the people on this flight are members of the team, Serge! They all understand the importance of Uno!”

“Not at seven thirty in the fucking morning, Goretzka,” Manu grumbles from the next row, and even as he buries his face in his pillow, Julian can see the barely concealed smirk in response to the expression of terror that graces Leon’s face. They’re flying to Belfast after spending more time training in Hamburg following the Netherlands defeat, and somehow Leon managed to rope a good quarter of the team into his boisterous game of Uno, and it might only be the time and Max’s absence that’s stopping him from demanding they do the version where they have to take off an item of clothing every time they have to pick up four.

Julian would much rather sleep.

The volume discussion takes itself off on another spiel and allows Julian to put his cards down and observe the rest of the team. Toni and Jonas are sitting next to each other, Jonas’ head resting on Toni’s shoulder as they murmur something private and indecipherable to each other, Marco listening to voice messages from Mario in the row in front of them, Kai next to him who is listening to music and staring at the clouds rushing past the window outside.

He always hated flying, but he seems so calm to look at now, bed hair pushed back away from his eyes like Julian always wanted to do with the most delicate of movements, no trace of his former angst. For someone so opposed to everything to do with the situation, the flight, the early wake up, he looks so composed, almost happy.

It serves as the morning wake-up call for his daily taunts. 

“Jule? You okay?” Someone, Serge, says, way quieter than the rough jokes flying between Leon and Niklas that are detracting the attention of everyone else. “We’re coming into land now; you should probably make sure your seatbelt’s on.”

“Thanks,” Julian smiles softly, grateful for Serge’s gentle nature. He loves Leon to death (same with Kai, back when the two of them would run off to create all sorts of mischief and land them all in trouble) but sometimes his relentless buoyancy is overwhelming, and his love for Uno is the one thing that outweighs Manu’s authority, to the extent that Lӧw’s voice comes booming from over the cabin, yelling at him to shut up and get back in his seat.

“I bet he feels like a childminder sometimes,” Serge remarks under his breath, causing Julian to snigger and, naturally, attract Leon’s attention and cue ten minutes worth of whining to be let in on the joke.

Finally, however, the gods that must be torturing him with an overexcited Leon relent, because they’ve landed in Northern Ireland and are finally allowed to depart the plane. There’s a small crowd of people in the arrivals gate, a couple of kids with incomprehensible accents who give him big toothy smiles, which is a much nicer thing to focus on than Leon’s comments in his ear about being in the same country as Max and how he wouldn’t even have to use his passport to go and fuck him.

“Yes, we get the point,” he says, once they’re out of earshot of the crowd, for fear that some of them might actually speak German. “You’re a horny piece of shit who wants to fuck his boyfriend. We get it.”

“I’d say that’s rich coming from you but---,” Leon’s voice trails off and Julian can pinpoint the moment the Bayern player realises where his own sentence was going and its connotations, face blanching as he apologises. He waves it off, more aghast at his own apparent frailty if they all think he can’t handle the jokes the lot of them are so used to firing between themselves, trying not to dwell on the point and instead managing to lose Leon in the throng of staff and players trying to squeeze onto the bus. By the time he makes it into the aisle, there’s only a couple of seats left, right at the front.

His eyes meet Kai, who’s sitting near the back, sandwiched between Marco and the window (and it’s roughly then Julian realises how his captain has attached to the hip of the man he’s been questioned about, and the concern is almost enough to replace the relief at finally getting some respite). He slumps down into his seat, nodding awkwardly at the random member of the medical team he’s next to, and tries not to think about all the information about him being extrapolated not even ten metres away.

Outside, the sun glitters on the sea. They’re driving towards the docks, and really, with every minute they get closer the strange feeling that’s encapsulated Julian increases tenfold, because it might merely be light on water, but it’s the same shade and the same effect as the water on the river that he, Mitch, Sam and Kai spent so many summer afternoons sunbathing by. The constant reminders of Kai, the sheer amount of time they’ve spent together and the way he can make the seemingly most meaningless of things come back to him, is so draining Kai’s name might weigh a hundred kilos that drape across Julian’s shoulders, pushing them down.

The water gets closer as he manages to shove any thought out of his mind, trying not to look in any discomfort and garner unwanted attention from the staff. Focusing on the periodic thud of his music, a tiny part of him begins to relax, even when the hotel turns out to be on the waterfront. At least the sea salt creates a distracting enough scent when he’s the first player off the bus, instructed by Jogi, once he’s got his bag from the hold, to head straight to reception and collect his key card.

If anyone calls him back to wait for them, he doesn’t hear them, and manages to catch an elevator alone. It’s the briefest moment of peace, escape from the chatting of his teammates who unintentionally provide backing accompaniment for his cycle of self-hatred. Enclosed in the four, grey, dark walls of the elevator, they can’t reach him. Kai can’t reach him. It’s fleeting happiness, which parallels to a hubris once he pushes the hotel room door open, the first thing his eyes laying on is the glitter of the sea in the dying summer sun, and then the two double beds in the centre of the room.

His mind manages to piece everything together, but his heart hasn’t even stopped thudding when the click of the door echoes in the silence.

Julian doesn’t want to turn around, but he does, just in time to see Kai stumble into the room, tripping over the wheels of his case messily, eyes flicking up to meet Julian, takes in the scene, the beds, the water behind him, and the precise moment the realisation occurs in Kai’s brain.

“You---, Marco said---,” the younger one stutters out nonsensically, and Julian’s too far away to see the minutiae of his reactions, maybe the way his eyes darken threateningly, or a terrified hitch in his breath, but he’d have to be fucking blind to miss the obvious trembles racking Kai’s body, the tears beginning to roll down his face, until there isn’t time for him to notice anything else because Kai’s grappling with the door handle and sprinting out of the room, leaving everything behind, but the door doesn’t close in time to muffle the guttural sob Kai leaves behind.

Shock pulsates through Julian’s veins, rushing through his ears until he can’t hear Kai anymore. He’s rooted to the spot, the hotel room door long since closed; and to an outsider, he must look absolutely fucking ridiculous.

Suddenly, he has to think about every single movement. He may as well be running a marathon through jelly in the walk to the door, because even though it’s barely five steps, it feels like it’s taken a lifetime, bone-deep exhaustion mixing with disappointment.

Maybe it’s just the reiteration that no amount of imagination can change the fact that everything between him and Kai is different now, and that his former best friend pretty obviously still has no more of an idea how to deal with it than he does. In an ideal world, there would be time to collapse against the soft, white duvet of the bed and contemplate it; but just like last time, there’s more pressing issues.

“KAI!” He hears himself yell before he’s even out of the hotel room. Normally, the team and staff are all on one floor, so he shouldn’t be disturbing anyone who wouldn’t already be a professional at ignoring Leon Goretzka prancing down a hotel corridor in his underwear at 3 in the goddamn morning. “KAI, WHERE ARE YOU?”

Immediately, doors down the corridor fly open, Marco, Jonas, a couple of others flooding out of various rooms, faces boiled in panic. Marco, he thinks, he can’t really pay attention when his mind is too busy scrambling to call Kai’s name despite the probable damage it’ll do to his cause, his captain’s presence only being confirmed by the slapped hand over his mouth and the fear-filled whispers of, “what the fuck is going on? We’ve been here five minutes.”

“Kai---, he ran away---,” Julian gasps out, as more of the team start to convene. They’ve got one half of the suite, and the noise hasn’t travelled to the coach’s end, yet Julian can already hear the whispers between Manu and Luca about fetching Jogi. All the doors are open, teammates lounging against them to prevent them from shutting out their roommates who left in a hurry, all except from one room on the end.

“Who’s not here?” Timo says, cottoning onto the door at precisely the same moment as Julian. He doesn’t wait for an answer, pushing through the crowd of teammates, knocking against the wood. From behind, he feels Manu and Marco’s shadows enshroud him.

“Who’s in there?” Manu bellows, and Julian didn’t even realise his friends were missing until he hears Leon’s stressed voice, someone quietly cursing through all the conversation, and intended-quiet whispers from Serge to, “climb down the stairs on the end of the balcony, Kai.”

“KAI!” Julian screams again, banging on the door, shocking maybe even himself. It seems to work, because the subliminal cursing that he could place in the middle of the ocean as the gorgeous voice of his former best friend only gets louder, before getting quieter against the sobs and the sound of footsteps clanging against metal, further and further away. Seconds later, the door opens with such vigour Julian almost falls straight into Serge.

He hasn’t collected himself before Manu’s eviscerating them about Kai’s whereabouts, Leon (who must have appeared while Julian was completely out of it) trying to lie that they don’t know anything, and suddenly all the words are too much. He ends up on Serge’s bed, listening to Manu’s lecture and Marco’s comforting whispers, telling him that Kai’s just on the dock below the hotel and he’s watching over him.

“For you, Jule. I care about the kid, of course I do, but no one knows him like you do.”

“That’s what he used to say,” Julian says, not realising how close he was to tears until he notices the aridness in his throat. It must disrupt Manu from his speech, because the room falls silent, Leon wincing because he _knows the fucking pain_. “Don’t comfort me,” Julian has to say, before this can turn into another one of those god-awful comfort sessions that just leave him even less convinced that he deserves them, “we should be discussing how we’re going to support Kai. It’s no secret that he’s having panic attacks, and it’s all my fault.”

“I can get your rooms changed,” Manu interjects, “but only as a last resort. I’ll need to speak with the kid once he gets back here.”

“I really don’t mind rooming with him,” Julian says, as believable as he can make it with the tears rolling down his cheeks. “But I can’t have him freaking out every time he sees my face.”

“No, we can’t.” Marco mumbles. “Christ, what a pile of shit.”

“I just don’t understand how a transfer caused all of this,” Julian sighs, not even realising the looks of _here-we-fucking-go_ that must be rolling around the other four. “Okay, I should’ve told him, but I don’t get how he’s not over it now.”

“You’re not over it either.” Serge says, and one look up from where his gaze is hammered to the floor confirms it’s what the rest of the team is thinking. “I think the two of you need to have a serious, long talk about everything that went down between you, even if it seems like there’s things the two of you have put off talking about for ages.”

“I was in love with him,” Julian says matter-of-factly, more for Manu’s benefit than anyone else’s. Too many people know for him to be embarrassed about it, “fuck, guys, I still am. It’s so selfish, because every time he does this, I just think about how if things were different I could just kiss him or something and he’d be okay, I just can’t stop thinking about what I want when I know I should be thinking about what he needs.”

“You can’t think about Kai all the time,” Marco says, “if you did, you’d drive yourself fucking insane. Does he know?”

Marco's words resonate in his gut, don’t allow him to prepare for just how close to home they hit, because that’s precisely what he’s _spent the last two fucking years doing_. With how much Marco knows, Julian wouldn’t be surprised if that was the whole point.

“No, and I can’t tell him. Not when he’s like this.”

“No,” Manu nods, “you can’t. It’s not fair on him.”

“It’d be pointless anyway. He’s found someone else, so all it’d come to is painful roommate awkwardness and a broken heart.”

“He’s found someone else?” Serge exclaims suddenly, a bit too enthused to come across as actually surprised. Instead, it just rings fake, piquing Julian’s suspicions at precisely the worst possible moment.

“Yes---,” he says instead, “he’s been with them for way over a month.”

Marco’s nodding slightly, eyes averting Julian’s as he scans over the room. Outside, the wind is tangling Kai’s untameable curls as he leans against the railings of the docks, shoulders hunched as Jonas and Toni approach him cautiously, his former best friend looking closer to breaking down into another round of sobs rather than berate the older members of the team. Julian sees the way Kai quashes the tears, fakes a smile and follows the others back to the hotel before the younger one has even moved. Three seconds later, it’s the most painful form of déjà vu.

“He’s coming back,” Leon says in a voice that’s obviously trying to conceal the obvious question.

“Don’t overcrowd him,” Manu says instinctively, taking on the terrifying captainly voice that half makes Serge, Leon and Julian stand to attention. “Jule, go back to your room. Expect Kai if you see him. I will talk to him first.”

Kai can’t sleep if he’s on the bed nearer the window, so Julian immediately collapses into that one, wishing with some severely misplaced hope he’d fall asleep and wake with Kai curled in his arms and with everything okay. Naturally, none happen, Kai’s name whirling through his head like a raging siren rather than falling out of his lips as a soft, lovelorn whisper.

He didn’t remember Kai taking his room key with him, so he almost jumps out of his skin when the door finally clicks open. He’s got no idea how long it’s been, his entire body has gone dead, but Kai walks into the room and locks eyes instantly with him.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” Julian says, feeling like he did when Noah found him hiding a couple of weeks before the Abitur. He doesn’t know what he should say, so what ends up falling out of his mouth is something that sounds a little bit like, “are you okay?” and a little bit like “uh.”

Kai seems to get him though, judging the way he doesn’t hide averting his eyes.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” the younger one coughs, “I just needed, um, a walk.”

Kai’s eyes are hard, almost black as they stare back into Julian’s. He’s so close to forcing Kai to sit on the bed, rocking forward until his forehead is almost touching the younger man’s, forearms rested on his thighs, and confessing that Jonas had told him everything, and that he’s no idiot and is perfectly aware of what’s just happened, but Kai’s wordlessly daring him to. And if he takes the bait, he just knows Kai will snap.

There’s the other option of an offhand comment, but any consideration of that is over by the time Kai stalks over to his bed, coughing an awkward ‘thanks,’ when he notices he’s got the one further from the window.

“I remembered,” Julian says, without thinking. “That you didn’t---,”

“Like being nearer the window, yeah.”

God, it’s like Julian could cut the tension with a knife and ball the shreds into his fist and throw it off the balcony. Kai’s somehow been talked into staying, even when his body language belies that he would rather be anywhere than by Julian’s side, and like an idiot, Julian brings it up.

“You know, if you really wanted to switch rooms, Manu could sort it.”

“I know,” Kai grunts, after an agonisingly awkward beat. There’s something left unsaid, a shameful confession that Kai doesn’t know how to disobey Manu’s wishes, or maybe a tentative truth that he doesn’t want to. It’s a simple as that; Julian’s back in his headspace of daydreams and the distance between his Kai and the Kai two metres away on the other bed is tangible. “It doesn’t matter, I’m here now.”

It’s borderline idiotic of Julian to push things when Kai’s in such a fragile state, but he’s been antsy, mind clouded, ever since Kai’s entire body racked itself with shaking, “Can I talk to you?”

“Aren’t we doing that already?” Kai says back, tone a little too sharp to be reminiscent of the old days, but too soft to be insulting. “Go on, then.”

“Are we okay? I mean, if we’re not, I understand that, because I know what I did was wrong and I hurt you and I wish there was a way you could realise how shit I feel about that, it was never my intention to hurt you---,” he’s rambling, tripping over his repeated words, feeling every inch of skin burn a furious scarlet under Kai’s steel gaze. It’s clear how close his former best friend is to snapping, and part of him wants to hear it, the part of him that’s been obsessed with submerging himself in pain ever since, the part of him he spends ninety percent of his life scrutinising, but then there’s the rest of him that would probably sob if Kai yelled. “What I’m trying to say is, for the sake of the team, can we at least try and be friends? Just for the international break?”

“Who said we weren’t friends?”

“I, um, don’t know--,”

“Don’t worry. Sure,” Kai grunts, heading into the bathroom, leaving Julian standing in the centre of the room awkwardly. When he returns, something in his expression looks more venomous, “but before we do that, you have to know this. You’ve got to stop overestimating your importance and how much you hurt me, because it was like three days of pain and then it was fine. You haven’t damaged me, or broken me, or anything like you think. I couldn’t give a shit who you play for, I just want to play for my country. Speaking of which, it’s time for training.”

Kai’s out the door three seconds later, leaving Julian to ponder the content of his words, or the slowly rising joy of Kai saying the most words to him in one go in _months_.

• • • • • •

He doesn’t have to be at training for more than fifteen minutes to realise his joy is misplaced, and the reminder of the truth that is never going to change even when he deludes himself into belief lowers his mood for the rest of the day. Even when Kai takes their pretence to the most believable extent, slinging a casual arm around Julian’s shoulder as he lazily rolls a spare ball under his foot, he’s so dead behind the eyes Julian wouldn’t be surprised if the cameras observing them from fifty fucking metres away could pick it up. It doesn’t help that Kai doesn’t even return to their hotel room until dinner and the evening socials have long passed, glazed from all the laughter and gorgeous curls falling into his eyes. It’s such a familiar sight in such an unfamiliar setting.

The silence is almost peaceful, save for the residual awkwardness and the heat that’s fizzing in Julian’s blood as Kai slowly unbuttons his shirt. The younger one never said he can look, and deep down he knows he shouldn’t, but he can’t tear his eyes away from the crevices of Kai’s body, not even when he feels his roommate’s eyes on him, maybe even challenging him to say something.

Kai’s green eyes don’t even blink as he shoves his sweatpants down his legs, obviously not caring about how much fucking skin he’s exposed, and what the fuck that’s going to do to Julian.

“I-I’m, um, I need a shower,” Julian stammers, disregarding the fact he showered after the training session. After all they’ve been through, it’s certain Kai is going to follow his allusion, probably hide under his duvet to try and block out the second-hand embarrassment, but there’s no way Julian’s going to be able to help himself, not when Kai’s realisation has provoked an interested glimmer in his eyes. He’s so touch-starved, so Kai-starved, the slightest stimulus is causing his skin to blister and his sanity to crumble. He can almost hear the amused lilt in Kai’s singsong, “okay,” that follows him into the bathroom. He just can’t decipher if it’s from today or from all the nights when Julian would wake up with a morning erection and there wasn’t time to deal with it, the way Kai would flitter about the kitchen with a not-concealed smirk gracing his lips.

The door slamming shut amplifies the intensity of the goose bumps rippling over his skin, a layer of wood separating him from Kai, a naked Kai for a few seconds, and he can’t stop his blood turning to flame, swimming dangerously south at an alarming speed.

He wishes the thud of the water against the shower floor is a distraction, but it presents itself as an invitation, an opportunity to hide what he really can’t, Kai knows, and the little glint in his expression he couldn’t hide. They’re hiding what they can’t, for the sake of morale. Part of Julian thinks it might be better to throw the door open, nakedness be damned, and wait until Kai joins him under the water.

The throb of his dick snaps him back to reality.

The heat of the water does nothing to further the pink flush of his skin, the taste of salt in his mouth from where he’s bitten his lips too hard, like he sometimes does when he’s trying to counteract the sudden urges of arousal. His knees are weak, he slumps against the wall, trying to concentrate on the water hitting his skin, bending into him, running down him, ridding himself of his unholiness. Except it can’t purify him, not with the source of his distraction lying in thinly clad pyjamas just beyond the door.

Running his fingertips along the side of his torso agitates everything, refocuses his attention to his dick that had let up the battle for the briefest moment. Everything seems to reduce into a stream of consciousness, the way his hands run down his body methodical, purposeful, wouldn’t be sensual apart from that it _is_ , touch trailing past his dick to his thighs, the soft skin he used to silently beg Kai to bite his ownership into, the desire he could never voice.

It doesn’t mean he doesn’t still want it desperately.

It’s what his mind jolts to, the memory of Kai between his legs the nights they used to do that, the way his former best friend would slide his hand down his cock painstakingly slowly, just to tease Julian, he can still remember the way his groans filled the hot space between them, the way Kai’s hair felt between his fingers, all of it, it’s awful and leaves him no escape from the torrent of want that’s reaching its frothy, white crest.

The cut on his lip must have doubled in size due to the way he clamps his mouth shut once he finally gets his hand on his dick, shoving aside the lasting guilt the way he does when he can’t avoid his needs any longer, vision blackening at the first, wet slide of his hand along his cock.

Kai’s name, the word he’d murmur reverently repeatedly as he used to slide into the younger one, still feels perfectly on his lips, in his voice. If Kai could hear him like this, he’s desperate to know if he’d notice. If he’d think the same. If he’d worship Julian like this in the same way Julian still does him. If they’d finally get a second chance at kissing. A second chance of being _them_.

It’s the most philosophical masturbation he’s ever had, and it’s definitely weird. Part of him starts to disconnect, losing his coherency in the way that should be terrifying but is so second nature he just rides the sensation, and with it goes his psychological inhibition.

As his eyes fall shut, it’s dishearteningly easy to mistake his own hand for Kai’s, the rough callouses that seem to curse every footballer player, his own easily passable as Kai’s, the ones that teased every nerve ending and used to send his body into meltdown. Kai had the ability to absolutely wreck him with the minutiae of his movements, break him down until he was nothing more than a whimpering shadow trying to regain the dominant persona he automatically embodied when he was with someone as beautiful as Kai. 

They lived countless nights of not knowing pain, just some dampened equation of bliss.

Now it’s the inverse, relentless pain that transcends barriers of time, and the bliss has subsided completely, the dampened emotions replaced with weak hotel showers.

Julian shudders, trying to refocus on his hand that’s still sliding along his cock. If he centres on the prickle of his skin, the little flame that burns despite the insanely distracting roll of his thoughts, lets it grow and encompass him, begins to regard his skin as significant to the circumstance rather than a flesh prison holding his guilt captive, he finally begins to relax into himself.

He runs the tips of his fingers along the underside, tracing the vein and relishing the involuntary shiver that racks him, despite the hot water running over his body. A groan escapes him, lips clamping together in humiliation milliseconds later, but the water probably drowns him out, and even if it didn’t, it’s not like Kai’s going to throw the door open and join him in there (no matter how much Julian’s desperate for him).

The thrum of Kai almost being voyeuristic excites him, and suddenly he’s letting several moderately loud moans slip past his lips, not caring whether Kai can hear him. It’s a ridiculous plan to make him jealous, not in the least when Kai’s probably getting laid every night with whoever this new person is, right until the noises are suddenly not about Kai and more about the relief taking his body victim.

Waves of that feeling he could never describe build in the pit of his stomach, free hand trailing from his abs to his balls, barely getting them under his fingers before he comes, vision almost whiting out and slipping dangerously on the wet floor of the cubicle.

Once the arousal has worn off, the embarrassment at the desire that came over him surfaces, knocks him sideways with its intensity. Kai isn’t his, it isn’t erotic of him to be moaning like they never did when they had those benefits, it’s embarrassing, over-sexual, to the extent it requires a self-given pep talk to get him to even open the bathroom door.

Kai’s breathing is periodic, belying his unconsciousness. He’s left the lights on, like he was so prone to back when they used to sleep together, and Julian’s so destroyed by the surge of nostalgia he almost climbs into Kai’s bed alongside him. It isn’t until he sees the panic in Kai’s eyes this morning in his mind’s eye as he blinks that he remembers he _can do anything but that_ , that he climbs into his own bed, pulling at the sheets and trying not to notice the cold.

Kai’s skin is warm. He knows that from experience.

He can’t stop himself from whispering, “goodnight,” into the silent blackness between them after he clicks the lamp off. It doesn’t seem real that Kai and he have some semblance of friendship between them again, even just the little smiles whenever Lӧw went on a tirade during training earlier in the day, he’s gone too long without him. They went from speaking every day, gaming, training, video-chatting, having sex, being some incoherent mess of friends that ended up in a mess of their own come _way_ too often, to this. Friendship that Julian intended only to stagnate at worse, rolling back into more secrets than Julian’s aware even exist. They’re barely even passed the hostile gazes stage, and he’s raced ahead of himself just because Kai is so goddamn beautiful.

He falls asleep with Kai on his mind like normal, except Kai’s lying two metres away and not fifty miles. Even then, he can’t be satisfied until his former best friend isn’t even two centimetres apart from him, aside from wishing for that is the definition of futility. His sleep is restless, like it always is his first night in a hotel, so when he hears the first cry, he’s awake in an instant.

It’s quiet, inaudible initially. All he can sense, after the first noise, is Kai is shifting uncomfortably, until it’s evident this isn’t some method to rid himself of a crick in his neck. With it, Kai accompanies his realisation with a traumatic cry of something incoherent. Julian’s sure it sounds like a name, until he convinces himself it didn’t.

Sleep’s almost consumed him for real when Kai yells again, Julian’s eyes shooting open, before sitting up and looking over at his former best friend, who’s begun to thrash. Suddenly, something in his sleep-deprived brain falls into place, and he’s reminded of more than a couple of nights when Kai would wake, tear stains on his cheeks, from one of those horrendous nightmares he’d never divulge the contents of to Julian. Kai’s in the throes of a nightmare.

He’s about to get up and attempt to rouse him, when Kai screams something unmissable, unmistakable.

“JULE!”

He’s frozen to the spot, duvet pooled around his ankles. He’s pretty sure his entire body stops functioning for the slightest fraction of a second, because his heartbeat seems a millisecond too slow, his breathing not quite filling his lungs, like he’s been robbed of his own body, the prisoner he regarded earlier has been set free by Kai’s screams, and he’s empty. He could set it down to tiredness, excuse it like he excuses everything else, but he knows it’s more than that. It’s pure, unfiltered shock, yet it’s the best sensation he’s felt in _months_.

“No,” Kai mumbles, voice and resolve broken from the unfiltered fear infiltrated into Julian’s name, “please, no.”

Trying to stand with the shock coursing through his veins is impossible, the only thing that manages to counteract the spinning room is lying back down, pulling the duvet up to his chin and lying there, eyes wide awake and slightly adjusted to the blackness of the room, muscles coursed for the next scream. When it comes, it’s worse than he remembers, every single fucking time.

The absence of Kai’s soft, warm body multiplies the dread that shrouds him, the vast expanse of skin that Julian could run a gentle, friendly glance over to free him of the perils of his dreams, play it down as merely required for comfort, and not because it was so easy to misinterpret as romantic, yet still didn’t cross the line entirely.

“I still--,” Kai’s words are muffled by the rustle of the sheets as he thrashes, but Julian’s so intoned he could swear Kai mumbled, “need you.” If he did, if that was true, it would be so simple to confess that Julian’s in love with him, always has been, but he knows Kai would never voice that when sentient. It doesn’t stop him from repeating the words in his own voice, tasting them against his lips, almost conjuring the taste of Kai’s body, the salty taste of skin he craved.

His fantasies are shredded by the shrillest scream Kai has ever released echoing through the room. It’s so intense Julian’s half-expecting Manu to bang the door down in about three seconds, but the fear has iced his bones, he can’t move, rooted to the spot. The hotel duvet is thick, but he’s vaguely aware he’s shaking, waiting for an intervention he eventually realises won’t come, because Kai’s woken up, gasping heavily and Julian can just about make out the tremors overtaking the younger one’s body.

“Jule,” Kai says, more a desperate statement than a question, and the imaginary ice has claimed Julian’s voice box, so he couldn’t respond even if he could think of something more eloquent than a choked off splutter of Kai’s name. “Oh _fuck_ , you’re okay. You’re still here, he’s still here, Kai, you’re a fucking idiot, he’s here and asleep and he doesn’t have to know about any of this--,” Kai’s mumbles are drowned out by him moving down to sleep, and Julian _aches_ to say something, anything, let Kai know that he heard everything, maybe Kai’s overtiredness would enable him to be more honest, maybe Julian could offer to lie by Kai’s side again, protect him from those nightmares with a loose arm threaded over the gorgeously warm skin of his torso. By the time he’s stopped overthinking, Kai’s breathing has steadied out, mumbling giving way to soft snores, and Julian doesn’t think the trembling still plaguing him is due to the cold anymore.

He already knows sleeping is going to be impossible until his body has completely readjusted to normal following the Kai debacle, so he fumbles around for his bag, grabbing his laptop. His phone, charging on his bedside table, lights up with the odd Instagram notification as he unlocks it, blearily texting Jannis something about Kai, before powering up his laptop. The words flow from his fingers without conscious thought.

He’s met with Kai’s smiling face, his own happiness shining through his eyes as he gazes at the man who was his best friend when these pictures were taken, millions of photos of them on the pitch, at training, at random locations Jannis decided would be ideal for photoshoots. Even when they were smouldering, there’s a subconscious happiness floating between the two of them that’s unmissable, something that seems irretrievable, locked in the photos he’s clicking through on Google images.

Scrolling through the endless articles where they mentioned each other, lungs squeezing painfully when he remembers the jokes that rolled off his tongue when he received player of the month over Kai, the playful punches to his shoulder they’d warrant.

It isn’t until he ends up on a work centred around them that definitely _isn’t_ filled with quotes that he realises, heart thudding, what media he’s ended up consuming. He can’t stop himself from reading the first chapter, giggling slightly as he imagines a half-asleep, zombified Kai traipsing into his coffee shop at goodness-knows-what-time in the morning, knows exactly how Kai looks with the remains of sleep weighting his eyelids. He can’t stop himself from smiling alongside the fictionalised him as he imagines Kai, stretched out blissfully on his sofa, free from all burdens of university for the smallest amount of time. He finds himself _desperate_ for his novelised counterpart to stay alongside Kai, wishes his real life was as clearly impacted by reciprocated emotions as the story’s. He drags the mouse to the ‘Next Chapter’ button automatically.

Knowing what Kai’s lips actually feel like (even when the cells on the skin surface replace every two weeks, the gentle, destructive feeling of Kai against him has never left his mind) makes it almost impossible to read when the two of them end up kissing in his flat hallway; their last interaction in the hallway of Julian’s home being that night Kai came to see him means he actually has to take a moment to breathe and look away from the screen to fight the rising emotions. It’s stupid, and way too jarring for Julian to consider succumbing to the urges that taunt while he reads the two of them fuck, even as his dick twitches in response to the dominant endearment he bestows upon Kai.

Somehow, he ends up reading a ridiculously long story about the entire national team, seemingly incomplete. He doesn’t seem to have much of a role in the earlier chapters, displaced in favour of the vintage team, but his eyes still widen when he clocks the author excitedly ramble about introducing Kai.

His best friend’s characterisation hits him directly in the gut. It’s obvious he’s been spun to seem like an idiotic, immature teenager with an underlying seriousness, which, before they were embroiled in the continuous emotionality, he _was_. He laughs along with his character as Kai pours hot coffee over a café floor, countless amounts of near misses of that exact event racing through his head in milliseconds. It’s clear they’re not the focus of the story, and once he realises Julian’s half-tempted to try and get some sleep (in between becoming the real-life version of Sami Khedira in harbouring jealousy for Olivier Giroud) until fictional Kai gets kicked in the head by said French striker and Julian’s reaction feels scarily realistic.

His desperation during the journey to the hospital is completely accurate to how he perceives himself to act in that actual situation. As his eyes flicker across the words on his laptop screen, oblivious to the sun rising over the docks outside, the author manages to captivate him, for the briefest moment he believes he’s living in the universe curated for this non-stop drama, but once his broken character places a kiss on Kai’s forehead, the words merge through the tears forming in Julian’s eyes, and then he hears a voice that throws him entirely,

“Are you okay?”

Kai’s tentative as he mumbles the three words that have basically become the summary of their interactions, his face belying that he feels the same emotions Julian does whenever they find themselves in another awkward situation filled with way too much staring and the powerful surge of Julian’s emotions.

“Yeah, um, just tired,” Julian moves so quickly he almost falls out of bed, slamming his laptop shut. “Sleeping was pretty difficult last night.”

He sees Kai’s face blanch, and that’s about enough confirmation (if he even fucking needed any in the first place) that what he heard wasn’t a dream, “yeah, I didn’t have the best night either.”

“Too hot?”

“Something like that,” Kai says, not holding Julian’s gaze. “Uh, are we late for breakfast?”

“I don’t think so---,” Julian mutters, cut off by Kai’s incessant mumbles on the contrary, and the rustle of the younger man rifling through his suitcase for appropriate clothing. They’re not, but maybe Kai just wants to escape the overriding discomfort settled across the room, or maybe he’s on the verge of another panic attack and doesn’t want Julian to see. Or simply, he might be still reeling from the outburst that happened almost twenty-four hours ago that might as well have happened thirty seconds prior.

Julian rubs at the dark underside of his eyelids, tries to wipe the ingrained black smears into oblivion. Whatever his efforts, they aren’t fooling anyone, because he’s taken aside by the assistant coach barely three minutes after he’s set his plate down at the breakfast table. If he has to put in a bit extra bubble into his tone just to convince them he’s fine, particularly for the later match against Northern Ireland, then it’s worth it just to be left alone.

• • • • • •

Despite the overhanging exhaustion from the disturbed slumber, the thrum of the atmosphere as they emerge onto the pitch is enough to stimulate the flow of adrenaline. It pours through his veins, fizzing with every camera flash from the fans, multiplies with the knowledge that they can win this easily and Julian isn’t going to let a little thing such as ridiculous levels of concern for Kai prevent him from delivering a fantastic performance. Kai’s on the bench, Julian can tune him out much easier from there. Especially when he doesn’t have to deal with the agonising hum of Kai’s deep voice ringing in his ears.

His body just falls into place that night, cruising through the Northern Irish defence that is so fragile there’s no way it’ll hold out for the entire ninety minutes, even when his team have consumed an overdosage of wastefulness. Shortly after the break, he finds himself on the edge of the box, plays in Halstenberg who unleashes a glorious shot, and it’s that simple to grasp the lead.

When his eyes fall on Kai celebrating, he wishes there was something else so simple to grasp. Something that probably _was_ , not least on an overly emotional night in Ibiza, but he was an idiot and someone else wasn’t.

He’s still in love, and really, his overly pretentious exhibitions of re-realising only serve to solidify the fact. It’s _so_ simple, the whole damn thing should be erasable like an error in a maths problem, but the feelings won’t fucking leave. They’re written in inerasable ink, and Kai has the secret to destroying it. If he holds something so complex, the weight cannot be dragging him, because he looks calmer than ever as he half-strolls onto the pitch to replace Timo, as if the feeling of the grass beneath his cleats captures him in a potion.

Kai’s hand on his is unimportant, only to signify their ‘friendship’ to all those expecting some exuberant shenanigan to occur. Despite their haughty agreement, it couldn’t be further from the truth.

Julian’s life is one massive extended metaphor for a pile of horseshit.

The philosophy of his thoughts render him unable to celebrate when Kai delivers a defence-splitting pass directly to Serge, who slots it past the keeper, and with that, the game is done, the international break is done, its only relevance the memes Julian knows are coming the second he clocks Serge dangling precariously over Kai’s shoulder.

It’s another one of those moments where Julian mistakes his life for a cinema reel, or maybe a conveyor belt of moments, with barely any interconnection and an overwhelming sense of monosyllabic overture. Kai and Serge, Joshua looking petrified for his club teammate’s life in the background, is just another occurrence that’ll slot into his messy consciousness and circulate wildly between the fangirls for half a week. For all his bravado in writing the match off, the final five minutes seem to last a lifetime, simply because his legs feel as though he’s attempting to sprint through treacle.

The sensation that claims him when the final whistle rings around the stadium, once-boisterous Northern Irish crowd relatively silenced from their own disappointment, is one of muted relief. The hell of pretending everything’s okay is over for another month and a half, their flight back to Germany is later that night, after all the obligatory media circus has been completed, and Jannis has already promised to pick him up from Kӧln airport. Within five hours, he’ll be back home in Dortmund, away from the suspicion and the uncertainty and the calculation flickering behind the beautiful façade of Kai’s green eyes.

Convincing himself of Kai’s hatred is such a twisted process he almost jumps out of his skin when the younger one appears by his side, shaking his hand with a bit too much formality to be friendly, and definitely with no other intention than reminding him of custom. With how they used to be practically telepathic, and not for the first time Julian considers how completely unsurprised he’d be if, after all the detailed thoughts he’s had about his former best friend, Kai had bleached his mind of every last drop.

It must be as exhausting for Kai to be subjected to the broken record of Julian’s consciousness, as it is humiliating that Julian, a twenty three year old man who’s experienced some of the worst heartbreak scenarios the world has to offer, seems to be getting _worse_ when he’s meant to be getting over him. He works himself into a corner of silence, unable to reciprocate any of the comments buzzing around the dressing room once they’ve all convened and doesn’t emerge from his trance until they’re six miles in the air, flying over an England that’s shrouded in the night’s sky, and that’s only because Leon sighs dramatically and punches his shoulder.

“What the fuck was that for?” He snaps, long past the stage of friendship where that’s inappropriate. It’s also almost midnight, he’s exhausted from his morning literary endeavours and the match, and the Bayern midfielder definitely has far too much energy.

“Just wanted to get your attention!” Leon exclaims, beaming, and if he isn’t careful, he’s going to attract the attention of the whole damn plane. “We’ve barely spoken this entire time, apart from---,”

“We have. It was just a busier break this time around,” Julian’s not completely lying, the media commitments and his personal obsession with one of the players has wasted away a lot more time than usual, but Leon’s also not wrong in the sense that they haven’t been attached at the hip during the social aspects.

Leon doesn’t look convinced.

“Whatever you say,” he says, glancing around almost fervently, dropping his voice to something more suitable for their confinement. “I wanted to find out more about Kai.”

“Don’t ask me,” Julian’s eyes roll into the back of his head, “I know nothing about him anymore.”

“You’ve managed to tell two lies to me in the space of as many minutes,” Leon laughs, the kind of acidic undertone to it that renders it impossible to decipher if he’s amused or not, “that’s got to be some kind of record for you. You practically know Kai better than he knows himself.”

“Now you’re the one that’s lying,” he shoots back, he can’t stop himself. “I had no idea about his panic attacks, and besides, isn’t that what Manu said when we appeared at your hotel room door _literally yesterday_? Right before I sat on the end of his bed and felt like I was about to faint from shock? The fact that the whole thing occurred because he realised that he was sharing a room with me for one fucking night? Leon, I’m not joking when I say I don’t think I’m sure I have any idea who he is anymore.”

“You do, though. Because underneath all that drama, that I thought seemed a little unnecessary then and is bordering ridiculous now,” Julian resists the urge to comment that Leon sounds exactly like Manu, “you’re both still who you were when you’d disappear off for long nights alone together.”

“Did you eat Serge or something? I think I liked it better when you were disturbing everyone and crying about Uno.”

“Dickhead, I’m trying to help you.”

“I know, I just---,” he breathes, swallows down the sudden lump in his throat, “I feel like I’m going in circles.”

“You’re more self-aware than I thought,” Leon says, but there’s no malice in it, despite how easy it would be to fall into that trap. “All of us have been watching you since the season began, maybe even as soon as you left Leverkusen, and all anyone’s saying is that they’re all having the same conversation with you, just about Kai, over and over again.”

“They’re not wrong. But at least it doesn’t play constantly in the back of their mind like it does for me.”

“It’s infuriating, I know,” Leon’s smile is sad, and Julian knows he’s just caused his friend to reimagine the awful period when he was split from Max for the god-knows-how-many-eth time, but before he can say anything else a further realisation dawns on Julian.

“Wait, you guys talk about me?”

“What did you expect?” Leon shoots back, and it’s roughly about then that some of the clouds finally lift from Julian’s metaphorical glasses, and he can _see_ the exasperation in Leon’s face, he can _feel_ the self-disgust at his own lack of pragmatism, and it feels all too comforting for such a mundane situation. It’s unlike those fleeting moments of affection radiating from Kai that just sent him into hopeless overdrive, because now he just sees that they were melodrama at its finest. Yet also, his improved conscience is scolding him for assuming Kai hates him, arguing that with their history, it’s almost impossible. The truth is, he’s been wrong about Kai every single time he’s considered anything but plain, unfiltered, neutrality.

“You went into another one of those internal monologues,” Leon deadpans, eyebrows cocked in amusement, and he’s not wrong because it’s only then Julian remembers he was even beginning to say something. “Thinking’s dangerous, Julian, surely you’d have learnt that by now?”

“And now you sound like my mum.”

“Maybe I am,” Leon flicks his way-too-short hair and grins, but the humour doesn’t last. “Seriously, Julian, I’m only saying these things because I’m hoping, one day, you’ll get it. Since you left, aside from your form, which is still brilliant, you’ve spent the whole time wondering if it’s the right move. I don’t know if you’ve ever actually voiced those concerns to anyone, but it’s obvious from the way you speak about it. You’re not as good at concealing your feelings as you think you are.”

Julian thanks whatever deity must be watching out for him at that precise moment for enabling the captain to announce they’re coming into land and gives him half a minute to collect himself. He wants to say something profound, an insight into some emotion Leon’s clueless about and disprove him, but what really falls out of his mouth is,

“What do you mean?”

“I knew already, but no one was surprised when you said you loved Kai, because the entire team’s known for months,” Leon’s wincing, probably due to the pressure from the plane coming in to land.

“Kai? Does he know?” Julian asks before he can prepare himself for the answer.

“No. I think he’s still in denial about you even leaving. God knows he hasn’t been able to take in enough of your signals to put two and two together yet.”

“I’ve been gone for months.”

“Have you, though? Physically, that’s true, but everywhere he turns, you’re around the corner, someone’s mentioning you, complimenting you, commiserating him, and on top of that, it’s obvious he’s fucking confused about his feelings too. There’s a ghost of you that won’t leave him be, Jule.”

“I had no idea,” Julian says, blood frozen in his veins, so shell-shocked he’s unable to compliment Leon for what must be the wisest sentiment he’s ever said. “Fuck, is it really that bad for him?”

“I couldn’t possibly say,” Leon grimaces, “he’s not as open with his emotions as you are, save for those horrific attacks. But just so you know,” Leon’s interrupted by the impact of the plane hitting the runway, “he’s the only person on this team that has no idea how you feel about him.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because if he did, there’s no way things between the two of you would be like _this._ ”

The sucker-punch that is Leon’s statement renders Julian struggling to even breathe, let alone speak, so he squeaks something out and watches his friend make his way down the aisle of the plane to the exit. He’s surrounded by noise, loud chatter that seems so out of place in the late night, the terminal all but closed except for light seeping from the two rooms the team will need to pass through to get to arrivals. They’re the last flight in for the night.

Most of the team are booked into an airport hotel down the road, so they all cluster together once the entire staff has passed passport control, hugs and fist-bumps and mistaken handshakes that take way too long. Julian flits about the team, half-asleep well wishes for the season, not even realising who he’s touching when he tries to pull the next figure into a hug.

He’s shoved off, and through his lidded eyes, he can just about make out Kai, glaring with an expression set of stone, arms crossed over his chest.

“See you, bro,” he says, ignoring the warning signs.

“Don’t call me bro,” Kai grunts, out of earshot of anyone else. “Break’s over. The agreement was, we’re friends for the sake of the team until the end of the break. Don’t talk to me.”

Kai’s taken away by Marco before Julian can say another word. He doesn’t speak the entire car ride home, ignores Jannis’ pointed glances, and spends the whole time scrolling through Kai’s Instagram account.

* * *

_**dortmund, germany** _

Julian wants to scream at Mario to fucking leave him alone the second the older forward approaches him at Brackel on the first training session after returning from break, but he swallows it down, tells himself that Mario is just trying to help and doesn’t know the extent yet. He wouldn’t be surprised if Marco’s updated him on the severity of Kai’s panic attacks that tore through the team like wildfire, but not even Jannis knows the snide comment Kai culminated the time with, the bitter sting of reality dousing his dream-like state.

At least, his newfound level-headedness prompts him to accept Mario’s offer of dinner the following evening, because for all his attempts, he can’t avoid him forever. He might as well just bite the bullet, face the over expressive sympathy, and be done with the whole damn thing. Once he sets it out to everyone else that he’s accepted Kai doesn’t want him, he can start on not wanting Kai.

Because, he does, still. Wants him with a passion that burns like a fire that doesn’t even flicker at the prospect of a tsunami.

In that sense, Brackel feels like a safe haven. Kai’s name doesn’t reverberate around the walls like it seemed to back in Leverkusen, when all anyone could discuss was the depth of his former best friend’s talents, it only repeats on loop inside Julian’s head. Once he changes the record, Kai’s as surplus to requirements as Lӧw should be to the DFB. His teammates have warmed to him, he’s mates with all the other guys his age, and despite their mediocre run of form, he feels as though he fits in. He belongs in Dortmund.

Convincing himself of that was half the battle of moving on. It’s that motivation that forces him over the threshold of Mario and Marco’s house as the autumn evening settles in, lightening the tension in the air with a simple joke about turning his phone off to avoid unwanted texts.

“I don’t think I’ll be getting anything, though,” he says, a little more melancholic than he intended. Marco bustles through the door, expression dropping in sympathy.

“What does that mean?”

“It’s done, Mario,” Julian says, and the look on Marco’s face just kills the tiniest inch of hope he didn’t realise he was still clinging onto. “It’s clear there isn’t any chance for me, and I’m not even sure I would want there to be anyway.”

“Woah, okay, hold on, tell me everything. Start from the beginning.”

“Aside from this one really awkward moment in the middle of training while we were in Hamburg, there wasn’t much for the first half of break,” Julian says, shivering involuntarily at the memory of Kai and him in the woods. “But once we got to Northern Ireland, we found out we were meant to be rooming together, which caused him to run off and have a panic attack in Leon and Serge’s room.”

“Fucking hell, something’s really wrong with that kid,” Mario sighs, shoulders dropping when Marco nods. “When is someone going to do something?”

“We’re trying,” Marco interjects, “he’s just not the easiest to get through to.”

“He never has been,” Julian says without thinking, cringing against the way the tension clouds the air. “But anyway, we ended up staying in the same room after all, and I honestly thought things were going to be okay. He had a bit of a go at me initially, told me that I didn’t really hurt him, but after that, he was calm and gentle, and it almost seemed like we were back to being friends. Weirdly though, I was so happy just for that alone, I didn’t really feel so attracted to him like I used too. It was so nice right up until we arrived home from Belfast and he told me his niceties were all for show.”

“Jesus, he’s apathetic. It’s almost like he’s repressing something.”

It’s such an offhand comment, Julian doesn’t expect it to cut as deep as it does. Mario’s nailed it down, Kai’s in _repression_ , and now he knows to look for it, it’s so fucking obvious.

“Now, don’t go bolting on us,” Marco tries to laugh, but even he, with his occasional oblivious insensitivity could never miss the still-rising pressure cramming into every alcove of their living room. 

“I won’t, but you’re right, Mario, shit. I’ve got no idea how to coax that out of him.”

“I don’t think it’s your job,” Mario says. “He is in a relationship at the end of the day, there’s stuff going on behind his doors that none of us but him and his partner know about. And, you should know it isn’t a linear road to recovery, hence the attacks.”

“He might not want your friendship,” Marco adds, “but you should still offer him whatever support he needs, deserves, whatever, even if he’d rather swallow a live spider than accept it. You must be sick to death of hearing this, but you really do know him so well, probably almost as well as his own partner, so maybe if you just let him know you’re appreciative of what he’s going through---,”

“Gladly,” he fires back, words coming out a little more sullenly than he intended. “It just seems like it would be pointless, especially given he’s said twice he doesn’t want anything to do with me beyond what’s necessary.”

“Do you really think he’s being honest when he says that?”

“Yes,” Julian says, proud that his voice doesn’t waiver in the slightest. “Like you said, I know Kai, and I know when he’s being serious, and this was one of those times.”

“If you say so,” Marco says, filling the wine glasses Julian didn’t even notice before, “now we need to talk about Saturday.”

“Don’t, please,” Julian groans, lips moving of their own accord, “I’m trying to forget it exists.”

“Unfortunately, because you moved to another Bundesliga club, it’s unavoidable. You knew this was coming, and at least it’s a home game.”

“Can’t I just pretend I’m injured?”

“That’s not the attitude to have,” Marco scolds him, assuming a captain voice Julian’s not heard directed at him before, “you’re here to do the best you can for this club, and if your intentions are different, then I advise you to leave now.” Julian knows he’s joking, but there’s a hard-backing tone to his words that belie his seriousness. “That being said, you’re going to start.”

“Favre’s decided already?”

“He thought you’d know best how to manipulate the defenders’ weaknesses to create the best chances for us to score,” Mario inputs, a little condescendingly. After all, Julian isn’t exactly shocked about his inclusion, it isn’t like he’s some Renato Sanches whose mere existence on a pitch in Germany would be questioned. “So, we wanted to check you’re going to be okay to face them?”

“I honestly don’t know. I’ll do my best.”

“That’s all we can ask. It is tough, playing against former clubs and all the shit that comes alongside, not least from the fans.”

With an air of finality, Marco culminates their conversation and moves onto the more mundane topics of life, including Mario telling a story about Paco’s pranks on Favre while Julian and Marco were away. It ends up being a late evening, wine flowing like blood until they’re all feeling a little worse for wear and are bound to regret it on the training field tomorrow afternoon, but at least the hellish experience of talking about Kai is over. Until Saturday.

If jitters begin to build in the pit of his stomach, he tries not to let them show on the training pitch. He is the perpetrator of a few mistimed tackles and the odd insult chucked his way, but in terms of pragmatism, he’s come a pretty long way from the days of hiding underneath the stairs to avoid Noah’s presence because of a crush. In fact, he’s pretty sure that he manages to digest the butterflies until the night before the match.

It doesn’t help that even the main Bundesliga social media account is posting about his and Kai’s on-pitch reunion, old moments of their friendship circulating on all his timelines until he takes the executive decision, late on Friday evening, to switch his phone off, muting all social media for good measure, and going to bed hours earlier than normal. His distraction plan doesn’t work out, leaving him tossing and turning until the small hours, night sweat on his back as he tunes in on Jannis trying to be quiet as he gets destroyed at Fortnite or whatever shit he does at 2AM.

Julian’s awake again by six, the late summer sun just breaking through the horizon, half-blocked out by the enormity of the stadium on the edge of the city, his flat in walking distance. It’s strikingly beautiful as far as stadia go, elevated his career to levels unthinkable at his past clubs, and now he’s finally managing to work out how he’s meant to leave his ghosts behind, it might start to finally feel like home.

“Don’t tell me you’re philosophising,” Jannis says, laughing way too loudly for before proper daybreak, especially as someone who can’t have had more than three hours sleep. “You didn’t even move region.”

“Fuck off, I’m just nervous.”

“You’ll be fine. Just don’t pass to Kai,” Jannis says, wandering out of the room just fast enough to avoid the socks Julian throws at his head. The match is mid-afternoon kick off, so Julian has to be at Brackel for eleven, where they’ll run down the tactics for the final time before the journey to the stadium, and he’ll be forced to stare at painful close ups of Kai’s face for the fifth hour this week. It wouldn’t be so bad if his face wasn’t projected up alongside, smiling as he and Kai used to communicate almost telepathically on the pitch, usually the precursor to a night back at one of their houses where they’d have too much sex to be deemed physically healthy.

Kai’s face is unavoidable, he’s Leverkusen’s star player, but he’s at least spared the reminders of his past in the analytics session. The road to the arena is already packed at the bus drives towards it, Julian’s eyes focusing in on the black pylons in a desperate attempt to avoid his gaze falling on a kid with a Havertz shirt. While the morning rushes by like it always does on a matchday, he can almost feel time slow down the moment he steps into the catacombs of the stadium, the early afternoon threatening to drag on even when there’s only two hours before they’re immersed in the game.

Attention’s going to be on him like never before in Dortmund, the whistles aimed at him like never before in his life, because he didn’t stay to endure the hellish two weeks post his split with Lotta. He’s not embarrassed to admit he ends up spilling out his fears to Mario, not even laughing as the older one fights a losing battle with his inside-out sock, repeating to himself his friend’s mantra that there’s nothing he can do but just try and tune it out.

He’s ready way quicker than ever before, Marco not even left for the pre-match seminar with the officials, and with every glance at the clock the stupid second hand seems to be ticking slower. The dressing room suddenly feels too confined, too airless, and his head is spinning by the time he’s practically vomited into the backstage by the doors.

His body, iced and freezing, instinctively begins running, unplanned, reckless, repetitive thud of cleats against the hard flooring, not looking where he’s going until he runs smack into someone.

He doesn’t need to look up to know who it is. Of course, his fate would do this to him.

“Shit, sorry,” Kai mumbles, almost shyly and Julian thinks he can’t even trace the venom that was rife in the younger’s voice literally under a week ago. “I keep doing that to people. You’d think I would’ve learned by now.”

Julian braces, as if preparing for the infliction of whatever offhand comment about his departure Kai’s sure to aim next, but it never comes. Kai’s just staring at him awkwardly, something unreadable in his expression that, just as Julian decides to bite the bullet and question him on, he inhales sharply and starts speaking again.

“I’m sorry about what I said last week. I was tired, and my, um, partner, was being difficult about how late we’d arrived back at the airport and was calling me selfish for asking for a lift home, and then you appeared, and I just snapped. I didn’t mean what I said.”

“It’s okay. I understand. I’m,” he breathes, curses silently for the constriction torturing his vocal cords. “I’m sorry about your partner. Is everything okay now?”

“Yes, thanks,” Kai looks around nervously, “I should be getting back to my team, but I’ve got no idea where I am.”

“Same, and it’s just down that corridor, turn left, turn right, and you should be there without having to wait for someone to unlock a door for you.”

“Great, thanks,” Kai darts off, disappearing around the corner just as Jadon comes around the corner, breathing an overdramatic sigh of relief and yelling in his London accent,

“Jule, there you are! Favre wants all of us for a team talk!”

“Oh _shit_ ,” he says aloud. There’s no clock in the random section of the stadium he’s ended up in, and his watch and phone are back in the dressing room, so he’s lost track of time. Knowing Favre, there will still be a whole forty-five minutes before kick-off, and most of it will just be pointless reiterations of the messages drummed into them over the course of the week, but on the contrary he doesn’t fancy being fined whatever the amount is for missing a team talk. Even so, his predictions are entirely accurate, but it does at least enable him to rid his mind of Kai and their interaction in the final build up to the game.

Somehow, they completely mistime their emergence from the dressing room for the warmup with Leverkusen, so that his former team are already mid-session by the time Dortmund appear on the field. Marco’s talking to him about something mundane, maybe to calm him down, maybe to calm the captain down, Julian doesn’t really know, but he does miss his name being read out on the intercom, therefore doesn’t notice if any heckles ring out from the red section in the corner of the stadium.

 _Let them come_ , he thinks, once he does begin to register them as he passes a ball to Jadon, _if they think I deserve it, let them. They’re only following in the footsteps of their hero._

All too soon, the announcer is declaring the warmup over, and there’s five minutes for one final collection of morale (and to put on their pre-game jackets) before they’re expected in the tunnel, and Julian’s face-to-face with his old teammates. It’s almost weird to see the way their faces light up when they spot him, the cheery yells emanating from _definitely_ Mitch, the quick half-hugs the Bender twins pull him into, the moment with Bosz that the camera catches gleefully.

“Good luck, kid.”

His thanks are drowned out by the screams of the fans above them, the doors of the tunnel slid open in wait. He takes his place behind Mats, can’t stop himself from glancing back at the end of the line to where Kai is, watches Kai fumble with multitasking doing the zip of his jacket and conversing with the little mascot by his side.

The first thing he notices is the heat. It might be because the three-quarters-full stands during warmup have completely filled in that five-minute respite, but suddenly, he feels the sun beating down on him, multiplied tenfold by the pressure cooker that is the fans, piled high into the backdrop of the blue sky. A sea of yellow, dotted black, and the section of red that seem to notice him watching them, because the jeers are now impossible to miss. They distract him to an extent he almost jumps when he hears his name ricochet around the spectators, before he realises that they’re singing some sort of insulting song about their acquisition of him.

He can’t stop himself from looking at Kai down the line of players. He’s smiling, squinting against the sun, yet Julian would have to be blind to miss the frown lines that only get larger as the singing of Julian’s name grows louder. The look of annoyed disconcertion has gone completely by the time Kai’s hand clasps his for the handshakes.

Marco passes the ball back to Manuel, and then they’re in the game.

Instantly, something reverberates in the energy of the atmosphere, something excited, poisoned with a tiny innate toxicity which Julian’s convinced is due to his presence on the field, yet large enough to make him dread his first touch.

Shoving the thought from his mind, he reads the opening passes played tentatively from the back, the team instantly clocking onto Leverkusen’s intentions of intercepting and holding the ball from there, positioning himself to receive the pass from Thomas. As the ball hits his foot, it’s almost like it flips a switch that activates violent noises to erupt from the away end. Not only does it cause him to fuck his pass to Marco up, ending up at the feet of Lars, it throws him more than he anticipated, he can hear the individual voices screaming ‘traitor,’ the same voices he used to hear sing his name in praise.

His heart’s beating far too quickly for this early in the game.

It’s been two minutes, and because of his distraction, Leverkusen have the ball, are beginning to hog it like Dortmund knew they would, and he can’t afford any more mistakes this early, so he tries to get back, position himself precisely where he knows it’ll mark Kai out of the game, exactly where Favre instructed. He wishes his coach had ended his sentence with something other than the sentiment that must have been engraved into his brain, that he knows exactly how to stop Kai, because he knows him so well.

Kai’s language has always been dreadful on the pitch, but it’s completely different standing next to him on the opposing team, because his curses are suddenly directed at him. It’s roughly then that Kai gets hold of the ball and begins sprinting down the field, feet moving in trickery of their own, well-practiced accord as he plays the ball wide to Baumgartlinger, who nimbly gets it to Wendell, negotiating their way across the plane of goal as the fans in the Yellow Wall behind hold their breath with a sharp snap. It’s snuffed out by Mats, rolling across the face of goal and retained by Rapha, but it adds a sense of action to what’s been a laborious opening section. Leverkusen, suddenly, are up for it.

His former team seem determined to slow the game down to their pace, force Dortmund back into a hole and wait for mistakes, and it means the game isn’t crammed with the fast-paced, nervy tension Julian expected, and he doesn’t know whether or not to be grateful for it.

“GET THE FUCK OUT OF YOUR HEAD,” Marco yells as he sprints past, with none of the tact imaginable. He’s not wrong, Julian’s pretty sure whatever’s controlling his limbs has decided to de-coordinate them from the rest of him, because he’s disorganised, and frankly a mess with the ball. He could put it down to nerves, except that would be a lie. 

With Dortmund’s break, the noise in the stadium reaches fever pitch, Julian’s team breaking down the metres towards Hradecky, waiting in the yellow-and-black net, poised for action. Marco’s running onto it, but Lukas gets there first, lobbing Dortmund’s captain with an expression of slight concern. Julian just about manages to settle his own nerves when he dispossesses Lars midway through a promising Leverkusen attack.

Leverkusen circle the ball, Wendell sprinting forward as the drumming from the stands gets louder, timing with the thud of Julian’s heart. Mats is surging towards him, sliding across in a tackle which is almost reckless if it wasn’t for the inch-perfect control, but there’s the ripple of anguish flickering across Julian’s former team. They’re out for a scrap, and with the unreleased tension tightening his muscles, if they provoke him, he might just snap. What a story that’d be for the headlines. 

His eyes flicker up to the giant screen by the South Stand, and he’s almost shocked to discover they’ve barely been playing twenty minutes. It might just feel like a lifetime. The crowd has only got louder. As the ball, which he must have subconsciously been paying attention to, nestles against the crook of his foot, fitting into him like a natural extension of his body as he runs downfield, it just feels like it has the capability to make him forget everything else. He plays it to Axel, who gets Jadon to split the defence with a beautiful pass, the English attacker’s pass far superior to Jonathan’s, and if it wasn’t for his wayward shot, they’d be one up.

Even so, the boisterous applause rippling through five-sixths of the stadium does enough to paper over the cracking awkwardness. The whistles are there too, louder now, but it’s like his contribution serves as a force-field, reflecting them back towards their source as Dortmund reclaim possession from where it’s been momentarily lost and charge back towards Lukas’ goal.

Marco shoots, and for a moment Julian thinks Lukas isn’t going to get there, but somehow, his former keeper does, parrying the ball away to Julian’s feet. His killer instinct activates as he tries to get the shot away before he slips completely, yet he can only fire off a half-power effort that Lukas manages to collect.

The fans exhale a collective sigh of disappointment, an almost frightening enlargement of Julian’s own stream of expletives. 

He’s not involved the next time they attack, because it happens so quickly. Achraf crosses the ball over to Paco, played onside by Sven, and there’s no other possibility. As simple as that, they’re ahead.

Julian doesn’t want to celebrate, pledged to himself that he wouldn’t, but when he feels Jadon’s hands on his neck, almost physically manhandled into the celebrations, too caught up in the demands of his teammates around him to be able to hear his morals and affections for his former club, for a split second he feels like he’s only a _Dortmund_ player, like he was born and raised and made it in this city and there’s nothing in his past that could reach him now, incriminate him. He’s revelling in the brief moment of bliss, until the hug disbands and suddenly his guilt is broadcast to the entire world, his eyes meet with his old teammates, Jonathan, Wendell, Kai, and the resigned acceptance on their faces. It’s not the emotion he expected to see, especially not from the man whose snide attitude, combined with Julian’s unrequited love, has been his own personal hell since May, but he’s almost grateful for it. It feels more real. 

He’s looking at Marco, wanting to share the final strains of jubilation with his best friend at his new club, but Marco’s gaze is somewhere on the bench, probably looking for Mario. Without any dejection, Julian trudges back to his place for the next kick off.

It’s not his best performance, he can’t shake the lingering feeling of uneasiness, but he manages to get through the remaining twenty minutes of the half without glaring errors, or any event of note. They’re crowding into the dressing room, Favre standing by the whiteboard and fiddling with the counters he uses to represent them, silently waiting for quiet to fall upon the room before he starts to speak.

“One-nil,” he starts, “good. If I was to look at the statistics on the TV right now, they’d be far and away ahead in possession stats, but as a team, you’re sticking to the basic plan very well, but you, especially Julian, Marco, you need to focus on forcing the mistakes because otherwise we’re not going to get another chance to score. Paco, excellent goal, positioning was spot on, Achraf good cross---,” as the coach divulges into his little individual corrections, Julian, much like everyone else, tunes out until he hears his name ring across the room.

“Jule, your play has been flashes of brilliance in an overall uninspiring performance. Push forward, get closer to Havertz when we’re defending, get in his head, force the error and then we’re away. From his first half performance, that shouldn’t be too difficult.”

Perhaps Favre believes criticising Kai would inspire an angry reaction from Julian, and to a minimal extent he’s right, but by the time the referee calls them for the second half, it’s dissipated. Kai, who approaches Julian as they convene for the second half, Leverkusen’s shoulders drooping, Bosz fuming silently and Julian dreads to think what’s just happened to them.

“You’re playing well,” he says, in as genuine a tone as he can muster, swallowing thickly at the almost soft look of surprise on his former best friend’s face, but then cuts Kai off with his own gasp. The blonde woman he saw earlier, tiny and thin and so utterly familiar in stature, is hanging back and looking for someone, and Julian’s convinced his throat may actually close for a second. “Lotta?”

“I know,” Kai smirks, before his game-face sets in, emerging from the tunnel, “she’s been waiting for you to notice.”

There isn’t time for Julian to respond, the two of them shoved by the stream of people emerging from the tunnel and the rivalry beginning to resurface, but the shock has completely thrown Julian, so much so that he doesn’t realise the game’s even restarted until Kai himself comes charging at him, so wildish on the ball. His repertoire of trickery is so extensive, Julian’s tempted to become a spectator and just spent the rest of his life watching him, he could never get bored of watching Kai playing football.

Somehow, he manages to complete his defensive duties and Dortmund manage to snuff out the threatening attack of his former team, instead making the definitely way too belated decision to not take his eye off the ball for the rest of the ninety minutes, because his psyche is living evidence that he’s not able to play Kai without getting distracted, and his team need as many points as they can get. 

Whatever Bosz said has seemingly worked to get Leverkusen up for it, because they’re relentless out of the gate, their away support getting ever louder from their corner, urging their team forward as Mats and Manuel have to bail the rest of them out a couple of times. It’ll end in locker room evisceration from the centre backs, particularly if they lose, but for now Julian’s just grateful they’re so apt at their jobs. He’s trying to evade Lars’ pinpoint marking when Manuel plays a beautiful pass across the field to Jadon, and suddenly his former club’s defence is too occupied trying to deal with the Englishman’s pace, Julian manages to get away down the other side. 

He’s lurking on the edge of the box, preparing for the potential chance to run in and strike first time, but he never gets the opportunity, because Jadon outruns Wendell, crosses it in, Achraf lets it go, Marco takes a touch, and the ball’s nestling in the back of the net approximately half a second later. It’s as simple as that when they’re that clinical. Personally, the only problem is his completely lack of game involvement.

With that, the atmosphere shifts to enjoyment rather than tension, Leverkusen starting to fall apart, Julian’s input looking like he’s on the losing side, so he can’t even complain when he gets subbed off. Aside from the fact, he’s going to have to walk right in front of his old fans, where he won’t be able to tune them out.

He leaves the field the moment the subs board appears on the far side, the nineteen in electronic red unmissable, and who it’s going to be is obvious anyway. He’s had his worst game in a Dortmund shirt, the nerves got him, all the expectation and the pre-game talk, and---,

“TRAITOR!”

He turns his head towards the field, pretending to watch action that isn’t even happening, only Thorgan’s introduction to the fans bedecked in black and yellow, but the clapping doesn’t drown out the yells. He’s right in front of them, only three metres from the nearest fans, victim to a wall of abuse that’s acceptable from their anonymity. 

“SNAKE!”

“KILL YOURSELF!”

“FUCKING CUNT!”

The insults fly at him in the high-speed sheet of relentlessness, smacking over his body like the rain from the thickest thunderstorm he could imagine, when just as quickly as they rose to meet him, the fans of Dortmund notice, get to their feet to welcome him, compete with his former fans for him just as the whistle blows for the game to restart, and the attention’s off him again. It doesn’t hurt him as much as he knows they’re just hurt by his own choices, want to tell him, and maybe it’s better than the style that someone else took.

Except he didn’t mean that much to Kai in the first place, so all he’s deliberating is his own ego. That’s easy to contend with, his performance was enough reminder of the damages of overthinking, overestimating himself and his abilities on the field and in his own head, so he mumbles an apology to Favre as he goes to take his seat on the bench, flipping the hood of his jacket up even though it’s almost twenty five degrees.

Thorgan makes an impact almost immediately, which just causes Julian to lament his own uselessness, but then Kai gets the ball, swiftly turning and heading towards the Dortmund goal. From here, Julian’s able to appreciate just how good he is, so exquisite he’s able to make it look like he isn’t trying, like he doesn’t care, when really, the slightly frustrated figure he cuts will just be the vicious cycle of thoughts Julian’s had plenty of experience listening to. He’s still very immature in that respect, hasn’t learnt how to detach from a bad performance in a normal match quickly, and if what Julian’s witnessed, he’s only getting worse.

Julian knows helping Kai wasn’t his job, more like something that he volunteered to look after when he grew closer to the younger man, but he didn’t see it out. It’s another thing that he was relieved of when Kai texted him.

Now there’s time to think about him, suddenly his body rejects all thoughts of his former best friend, remembering instead Lotta, and then he’s leaning up, over the bar, trying to spot her in the crowd of Leverkusen staff, most of them people he knows, but her blonde hair is impossible to miss when she’s someone of such monumental importance in his past. She’s typing away, probably trying to spin the abysmal performance of her team (Julian’s thoughts are interrupted by a sudden cheer and looks over to see Rapha’s scored) into something noteworthy for a club website, and he almost laughs. She’s always written, and it seems some things never change.

She doesn’t meet his gaze, but she must know he’s here if she’s any good at her job. He’ll just catch her after the match. The thought manages to carry him, and sitting and watching his team absolutely demolish Leverkusen is almost satisfying (for the brief moments he can forget who they’re playing), because his former team have seemingly given up, Kai not even bothering to protest when he gets a yellow for a foul Julian didn’t even see.

Marco gets a fourth, deep in the throes of added time, and it almost feels like kicking a dead dog. He certainly gets a similar vibe radiating off his past teammates as he goes around, offering them slightly awkward hugs and misremembered handshakes with Mitch, cringing at the whistling coming from the Leverkusen fans. For a moment, he thinks they’re still laying into him, but then he sees Kai disappear down the tunnel, head bowed, the further out of site he gets, the louder they get, and there’s a horrific sinking feeling when the realisation sets in that _they’re heckling Kai._

He can’t stop himself, he’s down the tunnel almost the second after they’ve done the traditional celebration with the fans, but Kai’s nowhere to be seen, he’s probably standing under a boiling hot shower and staring at the floor. Julian’s seen the scene after a loss way too many times.

Instead, he turns, just as she starts to speak.

“Hey, Jule.”

“Hey,” he says, unable to stop the smile spreading on his face, in spite of his prior thoughts, as he takes Lotta into his arms, not even embarrassed when he buries his face in her shoulder like he used to when they were younger. He’s still too surprised to really say much, so he merely blurts out, “since when?” and flushes scarlet as she laughs.

“You don’t follow the website of your old club? Talk about disloyalty,” she smirks, “but I started at the beginning of this season. English section.”

“Well, there’s _another_ surprise. I guess they must have liked the things you used to write about me on those wet afternoons at Oberhausen.”

“Maybe they did me some good,” she jokes back, modelling a matching bright smile. “I wanted to join before you left, but I guess I just missed you.”

“If I’d known you were coming, I would’ve stayed,” he answers. It’s not _quite_ the truth, because if he was ever going to stay somewhere for anyone, it would’ve undoubtably been Kai. She must at least have a suspicion about the two of them, he’s always been an open book when it comes to her, if she couldn’t pick up on his feelings then no one would be able to. “Anyway,” he says, flicking her off as she inexplicably starts to laugh at him, “now I know you’re here, we need to catch up.”

“I’ve actually booked to go back to Bremen this week, after all the post-match shit is done for this game, but I’ll text you about it once I’m back in Leverkusen. You’ve still got the same number?”

“I do,” he smiles. “So, why Leverkusen?”

“They were the only club who wanted me,” she laughs, “no, but seriously, yes, they were the only ones who offered me a job, but I wanted to come to this region anyway. There’s, um, someone here that is just an added factor for me now.”

“Is there really?” Julian exclaims, sounding rather like the teenager Lotta knew before, “I’m nosy, how’s it going in the love department?”

Lotta blushes slightly, mumbling something inaudible with the exception of the word ‘woman,’ and he’s just about to start laughing when he notices Kai come up behind her and sling his arm around his shoulder, mumbling something to her in what seems like a very heated debate for the amount of time he’s been in their presence. Julian’s momentarily distracted by Charles passing by and slapping him on the back, only to turn back and be greeted by an obviously simmering Kai. His former best friend’s hand is still on her waist, the kind of place reserved for a boyfriend.

“Sorry to interrupt the two of you, but we’ve got to go. I’ll see you soon, Julian?”

“Sure.” Their handshake is way too formal.

“Let’s go, babe,” Kai says to Lotta, who barely has time to choke out a ‘bye,’ before they’re heading back to their own dressing room, the suspicious and almost incriminating touch Kai has on her not relenting. They’re maybe six metres away when it happens, and Julian’s positive he physically reels from the shock.

Kai leans down and presses the smallest, chaste kiss on Lotta’s lips.

For a second, he’s thrown completely. It would make sense, Lotta starting at Leverkusen at the beginning of the new season, Julian receiving the relationship text from Kai maybe a couple of weeks later. She spent a few days at his, getting to know him, and then they embarked on a relationship. It adds up, right until he remembers his own history.

Lotta’s a lesbian, but Kai’s kissing her?

The way his knees buckle is almost comical when the realisation finally sets in. There was no relationship, Kai’s been single this whole time, all the turmoil Julian’s put himself through because of the immorality of lusting after an accounted for man has been pointless. There’s a surge of anger followed by the customary remorse, until he considers that there’s actually all the right in the world for him to be feeling like this. He’s been played, emotionally toyed with, even though Kai might not have done it deliberately, he still _lied_ , still made that decision to not-so-tactfully shatter Julian’s heart and make it nigh-on impossible to pick up the pieces.

Lotta looks back as Kai leads her into the dressing room, and Julian can see in her eyes she’s just as confused as he is. She’s marshalled in by someone else Julian doesn’t recognise, someone who must be double her height and double her authority given the way she practically squeaks out an agreement, but then Julian’s left standing alone, in the now-silent corridor, pondering _what the fuck did he just realise?_

It doesn’t take much longer before Marco comes storming out of the dressing room, scowling angrily at him for taking too long, and it’s only then he remembers they’ve just played a match and have to have a debrief, but as he’s frogmarched into the dressing room, the only thought he can conjure is _why?_

_Why the fuck would Kai do that?_

_• • • • • •_

“Have you really just been sat here moping all day?” Jannis exclaims before he’s even in the door, able to piss Julian off before he’s even given his brother a hug, when he turns up at Julian’s apartment the following day. “Fucking hell, bro, it’s almost five thirty.”

“And if you bothered to let me speak, you’d know that I actually haven’t been stuck here all day, we had a recovery session at Brackel this morning. Get your facts right.”

“Ooh, someone’s touchy,” his younger brother shoots back as they make their way into Julian’s kitchen, laughing when he clocks the unmissable crevice in the sofa cushions where Julian has been lying for most of the day, body going catatonic in the strain he’s put himself under to try and figure this shit out. “You played shit yesterday.”

“Always my most lovely fan,” Julian grumbles as his brother dissolves into another fit of cackling, “I would explain to you that footballers have good and bad matches, but given you were always shit at it, I think my words would be wasted breath.”

When they were younger, Julian and Jascha had to sit through several lectures about being tactful towards their middle brother, who Julian knows suffered his own issues with self-confidence from the constant comparisons to his older brother on the pitch. Nowadays, with Jannis’ photography career gaining evermore traction, his talent totally separated from whatever social advantages his genetics might provide him with, there isn’t that problem anymore, and Julian takes great pleasure in the occasional low-blow jibe.

“I still played when I was younger,” Jannis eye-rolls back, “and at least I never let someone else get in the way of my career.”

“I seem to remember a certain sister of Tatjana. Speaking of which, do you even hear anything of those people anymore?”

“Aside from Lotta, who I’m assuming you saw at the match yesterday, no. Funny how people who can mean so much to you are complete strangers five years later.”

“Sometimes it doesn’t even have to be five years,” Julian mumbles, unable to get the image of Lotta and Kai kissing out of the forefront of his mind. It’s been lingering there practically ever since he unlocked the door to his flat yesterday evening, rejecting the offers from some of the other lads to go out partying and instead collapsed down on his sofa, not even turning the TV on, and just stared as the time ticked into the night and the sun disappeared below the city skyline.

His muscles ached like never before at training earlier, and then he came back and didn’t move an inch, not until Jannis rang and demanded he be let in from the rain (that Julian hadn’t even noticed). It’s pretty pathetic, but that’s the adjective that perfectly describes who he is now.

Jannis is muttering something under his breath as he turns the game console on, automatically assuming Julian will want to play FIFA or Fortnite or something. It’s easier to hide his doubts under the periodic clicks of the controller and the blaring of in-game noise than focus on the knowing look on Jannis’ face.

After a couple of hours and several different games, once his brother ends up on top of him, wrestling over a game-inspired squabble like they did so many Sunday afternoons with half-joking accusations of cheating flying around the room, he’s almost forgotten the whole reason he was so morbid for the previous twenty four hours, but like any sort of happiness he seems to get these days, it’s short-lived when Jannis, breathing heavily, sits back against the sofa cushions and turns to him.

“I hung out with Kai this morning.”

“Okay. Cool,” Julian says bluntly, going back to reload the game until he cannot ignore Jannis’ eyes on him any longer, “what, are you expecting me to say something?”

“No,” Jannis’ response is maybe too quick, but he’s still got some sort of deducing look plastered on his face, one that half makes Julian feel as if his brother has got x-ray vision and is staring straight into his brain. “I just thought you would want to know.”

“Well now I do, so can we go back to playing?” He’s well aware he sounds like a spoilt child, but he doesn’t understand his brother’s motive in the slightest and really, it’s seriously beginning to aggravate him. “If you’ve got something you want to say, just say it, honestly Jan!”

“Okay,” Jannis throws the controller onto the coffee table lightly, raising a hand to deflect the criticism he must’ve been expecting. “Something is seriously wrong with him.”

“I think I noticed that when he bolted from our room sobbing!”

“Calm down, don’t bite my head off!” Jannis chastises. “The thing is, Julian, it’s not just about him being upset that you left or whatever else could’ve happened to him around the same time, but there’s something else there. Whatever’s wrong with him is changing him, you can see it in the way he plays---,”

“I didn’t notice anything yesterday. Or on break.”

“You’re blinded by the fact you’re fucking in love with him, you look at him like he hung the stars, I’m not fucking surprised you think he’s absolutely perfect.” Jannis’ response is absolutely rapid fire, completely void of wit, and pretty much metaphorically body slams Julian to the floor. “But the rest of us can. He’s tentative, he almost looks scared, like he’s constantly on the verge of being kicked out of his club or something.”

“Does this have a point or are you, you of all people who supported me through so much of my transfer, just out here to make me feel guilty?”

“No. Jule, you idiot, I’m your _family_ , I just mean that I picked up on it from him, and that’s why I went around to see him this morning. He’d had an early session, but he didn’t just look slightly worn out, the kid looked like he needed a three year sleep and someone to just hold him for the rest of his life.”

If Julian was still in love with Kai, that kind of statement would only prompt him to overenthusiastically volunteer himself, but he _isn’t_ , he _doesn’t_ love Kai, he doesn’t need to think about how lovely Kai’s hot skin feels, warm body curled in his arms as his former best friend sleeps, he just needs to get through this shitty, stupid conversation his brother’s insisting on having and then everything will be alright again.

“And did he say anything of note, or are _you_ the one who’s actually in love with him?”

“He was being so careful with his words, which immediately is a warning sign, you know how carefree he used to be,” and Julian can’t deny that Jannis has a point, Kai used to get them in trouble all the time with his careless comments that sounded absolutely dreadful out of context. “But then he just sort of sighed and actually managed to admit that he’s struggling, the only problem is that he doesn’t really know how or why it’s happening.”

“And what did you say to that?”

“I told him to go and get help.”

“Jan,” Julian says, hating the way his voice cracks like it’s a precursor to tears, because if he cries now, it’s like admitting that Kai’s a weakness he’s never going to get over. “Thank you, but he’s never going to do that.”

“I know. I just didn’t know what to say.”

There’s a long silence. It stretches out between the two of them, the small distance on the sofa being filled by an endless chasm of nothing, of sympathy for Kai’s ordeal. Even with Kai’s defences, unbreakable to Julian, if he knows he’s got a problem, then maybe it’s the first step to saving him from the hellish clutches of the repression he’s forcing on himself.

“I’ll speak to Mitch,” Julian says suddenly, before he’s really aware of the thought in his own head. “He’s with Kai all the time. He can make sure Kai gets the help he needs.”

“Good idea, and I live in Cologne too, so I can keep an eye on him---,” Jannis says, with the kind of tone that belies utter discomfort. “I didn’t realise having this conversation with you would be so hard.”

“Me neither,” Julian swallows, “I think I should go and see him.”

“You think he’d let you in his flat?”

“I used to sleep there all the damn time; I would hope so!” Julian tries to joke, but it only ends up coming out all wrong, bitterness dripping. “Seriously, no, I don’t know if he wants to see me, or if he’d let me in, but the only thing I can do is try.”

“He told me they’ve got a day off training tomorrow.”

“I do too,” Julian says, “and that was earlier than I was planning, but I think I should go then.”

“I’d normally advise against overcrowding him, but I think you should. I think, deep down, he knows how much he needs you.”

“I don’t think he does,” Julian sighs, “if he even needs me at all. He kissed Lotta yesterday.”

“What? But Lotta, you told me she was a lesbian? And that Kai was in a relationship?”

“She is, and he did, but he must have either not known or thought that I didn’t know. Either way, he kissed her, and now I have no idea where I stand with him. He told me he didn’t want anything to do with me _because_ of his relationship, but now that it isn’t true, I don’t know what to think.”

“Shit, Jule,” Jannis breathes, “I’ve got no fucking idea either.”

“I need to stop looking for signals when I already know they aren’t going to lead anywhere.”

“Maybe you should,” Jannis says, before standing up and pointing to the rain, that’s begun thundering down outside again. It feels rather fitting. “But I’ve got to drive home, and it’s probably best that I leave now, before the weather gets any worse.”

“If you’re sure. Mum would kill me if she knew I was letting you drive home in this.”

“Hence why I moved to Cologne,” Jannis smiles, grabbing his jacket. He’s halfway out of the door when Julian stops him, needs to tell him something.

“Bro, um, just so you know,” he pauses, trying to make his voice sound even slightly convincing, “I’m not in love with Kai.”

The smile that stretches over Jannis’ face is so devilish, so out of place, so disconcerting. There’s an unmissable scoff in his voice.

“Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that.”

The door falls shut behind his younger brother before he can get the chance to protest. Part of him feels like his brother’s aimed a rock-hard kick straight to his gut, rendering him numb as he cooks, eats, and moves around his apartment, the emotion of the day rendering him exhausted even though it’s barely past ten. While the other half of him feels more alive than before for some inexplicable reason, the second he crawls under the thick duvet, that sense of calm returns to its normal state of eluding him, and he’s back to the agonising numbness that can only be the aftereffects of shock. His thoughts might try and harm him, if he was emotional able enough to care.

Instead, he just falls into a restless sleep. He wishes it was dreamless, that even though he’d have to be fucking comatose to get some peace, it would still be respite, but he could never be that lucky. His mind plays him a videotape of Kai, Kai naked and sweaty under him, the joy on Kai’s face when Julian went round to tell him he’d made the squad for the World Cup, the innocence in his green eyes when he got called up for the national team himself, and then the haunting image of Kai’s tear-filled green eyes piercing into him as they argue in the hallway of Julian’s old house.

He’s not sure how, because he hasn’t done so since he was a child, but he manages to sleep for a full twelve hours, only awoken around ten due to the ferocious sunlight streaming through the windows, informing him that, in his tired haze, he forgot to close the curtains last night. Maybe it’s a blessing, because it does mean there’s no standing around, waiting for a more socially acceptable time to clamber into his car and drive back to Cologne to visit Kai, he just throws on some relatively smart clothes, eats a roll (and prays it actually manages to stay down), brushes his teeth and that’s it, he’s on the way back to where Kai definitely isn’t waiting for him.

Driving has always been relaxing, so even when his destination is somewhere which (for the first time ever) evokes so much stress, pressing down on the accelerator and feeling himself speed down the autobahn is enough to bring his heart rate down. Humming along to the music thrumming through the speakers is an added distraction, so familiar with the almost-deserted road he just sits, watches Dortmund disappear into the horizon behind him, all its football-related metropolis fading into the distance of his wingmirrors, and he’s almost happy. He even gets the motivation to sing along to whatever shitty rap song’s blaring, something he hasn’t done because it’d remind him of countless trips with Kai and Jannis, the other two trying their goddamn best to make him crash the car with their screaming. 

The counter on his car flicks through the miles as he nears his former hometown, ticking along almost in time with the little clock just above, as it works through the hour it’ll take him to get there. With every metre, every minute he gets closer to Kai’s house, every building of Cologne he can see rising up ahead, the nerves start to trickle back in, and he can’t just disregard them anymore. His moment of happiness has gone, there’s no way it would stay with intentions like his, but at least his body knows the way to Kai’s implicitly, he doesn’t have to think about it, and if he’s honest, he’s more relieved about the completely absence of traffic. If he had to wait any longer to arrive at Kai’s, he might die.

If you’d told him a year ago that he’d be antsy arriving at Kai’s, he would’ve just assumed it was some sort of arousal influence. Not _this_ , not a complete fear of what he might find, or what might be said between the two of them, what he might be forced to admit, what Kai might be forced to respond with.

There are so many questions, and God knows Kai’s not exactly known for being one to provide him with answers.

As he pulls into the so-familiar apartment block, he wonders if his legs might go dead from how hard he was pressing the accelerator, or maybe he’d be filled with doubt and therefore sit in the car park of Kai’s apartment block for three hours, trying to garner the courage to go in. In reality, the nerves just cause him to slam his car door louder than usual.

He’s just about to press the button to Kai’s apartment when the door opens, and out comes one of Kai’s old neighbours.

“Oh, hello!” the slightly-elderly gentleman exclaims, “we haven’t seen you very much recently?”

“Yes, um, sorry about that, something happened, but I’m back now!” He says, trying to conceal the nerves in his voice as he shakes the old man’s hand, and prays he doesn’t want to have a conversation.

Whatever deity must be listening, because he’s climbing up the stairs to Kai’s flat, too impatient to wait for the lift, seconds later. He’s sure the faint shouts he can hear sound like Kai’s voice, before deciding they don’t, but once he pulls the door to Kai’s floor, he realises that they _were_ , and there’s another voice, Mitch, and another, softer, feminine, undoubtedly Sophia.

“I’M NOT IN LOVE WITH HIM, CAN YOU GET OFF MY BACK, PLEASE?” Kai yells, the sound pounding through the walls.

Julian can’t hear the response, probably because it’s said at a way more appropriate volume, but also because his heart is racing as he approaches Kai’s front door.

He stands maybe five metres from it, trying to work up the courage to just fucking knock and deal with the consequences later, when there’s the unmistakable sound of a door swinging on its hinges. No one’s come out yet, but he can hear Mitch say goodbye, and he for a nanosecond, Julian seriously considers running for his life, but he can’t, his legs are rooted to the spot and all he can do is watch Mitch exit Kai’s flat, watch Mitch realise he’s there, watch the door remain open. He’s a spectator, all he can do is watch, and maybe register the fleeting thought of the door, the fact that Kai’s right behind it, the fact that Julian can hear his voice clear as day, and how there’s absolutely _no_ way Kai would not be able to hear them.

Especially not when Mitch’s voice rings out over the corridor.

“Julian? What the hell are you doing here?”


End file.
